The Ashes of a God

by F. W. Bain

XIII

And the elephant said: Pippala, as I stood before her, like an incarnation of the struggle between adoration and dismay, she spoke and said: O King Ruru, thou seest it is useless. Cease, then, thy pleading and persuasion, and go away; for all that thou canst urge is wasted breath, and thou art like one striving by reiterated throwing to fix a stone in air, which notwithstanding returns in spite of thee invariably to the ground—as does my heart to the memory of its lord.

And I said: Ha! now I see, I have offended the deity of Love, and the Lord of Obstacles is angry. For the one has turned his back on me, and the other has cast before me this mountain of an obstacle, thy husband, throwing even at a distance a blighting shadow in the form of reminiscence, by which I am buried in blackness and hidden from thy heart. O that thy eyes could see me, for then it might be that through them I might effect an entrance; but alas! the door to thee is shut. Or had I only been blind as well as thou, thou never couldst have entered mine. What! is it right of thee to occupy my heart, and yet bar me from thy own? And she said: My heart is full, and poor, and narrow, and far too small for thee, containing as it does room for only one, and not like thine, royal, and a palace, with chambers for innumerable guests.

And I said, with emotion: Ah! Watsatarí, thy words are very sharp, and like a dagger in my heart; and now I see, that every man is punished by himself, being followed to eternity by actions of his own, black dogs, from which in vain he will endeavour to escape. Aye! thou art right, I turned my heart into a caravanserai, to which I welcomed every worthless guest; but now I swear to thee, the very sight of thee has cleansed it like a pure river, which, ousting everything, has left there nothing, but the crystal of itself. Then she said: O King, they say of thee in the bazaar, that thou wast bent like a golden bar from straight to crooked, by the evil behaviour of thy queen. And is it true? And I said, eagerly: Aye! she it was that turned me, as thou sayest, aside, into the jungle of depravity. And instantly she said, quietly: What! then art thou not ashamed? For what art thou doing now, but striving to make me such another as thy queen, whom, according to thyself, thou blamest, as the cause of thy unhappiness? Thou art thyself the judge. And should I listen to thee, thou tellest me beforehand, I should be utterly worthless in thy eyes, and a discredit to myself, and my husband, and my sex. For the three worlds shudder at the spectacle of a woman that is traitor to her lord. Go then away very quickly, and forget that thou hast ever seen my face.

And Trishodadhi, as he listened, exclaimed in ecstasy to himself: Ha! good wife and subtle argument. Now she has slain him, as it were, with his very own sword. And utterly oblivious of his muttering, he listened eagerly for the remainder of the tale.

XIV

And the elephant said: Pippala, as I gazed at her, I almost shrank before her tranquil eyes, half believing she could see me, so utterly had she crushed me by her unanswerable words. And yet, the less I could reply, the more intense became my admiration of herself, and the stronger my unwillingness to obey her, and go away and leave her. And as if her beauty was not enough, her very virtue came to reinforce it, making her attraction a hundred times more powerful than ever. O pippala, what is this mystery of love, and who is there who can sound it? For what was I doing, but endeavouring to persuade her? and yet, had she been persuaded, I should actually have grieved at my success; as I actually rejoiced at her refusal, loving her the better, the less she could be persuaded to love me. And I exclaimed, as if in defiance of despair: No matter, O thou incomparable beauty, what I was, for I am changed, and by thee, in the twinkling of an eye. And what does it matter what they say in the bazaar, for the world is but a straw to me, in comparison with thee? See, I cannot live without thee, and I will carry thee away, to a distance from the world, and be to thee infinitely more than a thousand husbands such as thine. For he neglected thee, and left thee to thyself, not valuing his pearl. But I will be thy other self; see, thou art blind, but I will be thy eyes, and by means of me, thou shall utterly forget thy want of sight. And if thou wilt, I will take thee clean away, turning my back upon my kingdom and the world, like yonder necklace which I have left for thy sake lying unregarded in the grass, and asking of thee in return nothing but thyself. Dost thou not know, what fate awaits thee here? Canst thou endure to live, deserted by thy husband, who is either dead or gone, the object of the scorn and derision and hard usage of the world, a very target for the arrows of contempt?[[14]] What then will thou resemble but a blue delicious lotus, trampled in the mire of a city street by the foot of every passer-by; a lotus, whose appropriate position is either the pool in the silence of the forest, or the head of a king? But come with me, O lotus, and thou shall gain at one stroke both the forest and the king. For here am I, a king, and beside us is the forest, stretching like the ocean to the south, whose farther shore no hunter ever sees. And far away within it, I will build thee a marble palace that shall laugh at even Alaká, set like a pearl in the middle of an emerald of gardens, full of pools of golden lotuses, whose roots are nibbled by a multitude of silver swans. And there by day thou shall wander led by me, or lie and dream, fanned by breezes heavy with the sandal straight from Malaya, on marble slabs cooled by the spray tossed from the crystal tanks by waterfalls whose music shall pour sleep into thy ear, leaving thee wakeful at midnight to listen and tremble as I guide thee along the palace-top at the cry of the wild animals roaming at a distance in the wood, till at last thou fall to dreaming in my arms, lulled by the slow and melancholy weeping of the moonstones oozing as they swing to and fro slowly in the moonlight, as if keeping time to the silent dance of their own long shadows on the floor. And what will it matter to thee or me what they say in the bazaar, living together like Siddhas in the moon, to whom this babble of busybodies in the cities of this despicable earth sounds like the recollection of the murmur of a far-off ocean in the dream of a half-remembered birth. And all the while I will be thy servant and the eyes of thee, and my voice shall paint to thee pictures of the world that shall surround thee, and be thy one interpreter, till learning its language, thy soul shall even forget to remember it was blind. And I will utterly efface thy recollection of this husband, who is a husband in nothing but the name, since he leaves thee deserted and alone, to be afflicted; and instead of him I will be thy husband, and thy other half and helper, and thy soother and thy lover and the very eyes and soul of thee.

And Trishodadhi, as he listened, said with anxiety to himself: Ha! now this liar of a king is very cunning, and beyond a doubt, many a woman would have found it hard to resist the flattery of his tongue. And oblivious of his muttering, he listened eagerly for the remainder of the tale.

XV

And the elephant said: Pippala, as I ended, I stepped forward, and I took her, very gently, by the hand. And then, lo! the very moment that I touched it, she started. And she leaped back, like one that has suddenly put his hand into the flame of a fire, with a cry. And as I watched her, she stood for a single instant, like one balanced on the very verge of flying, or sobbing, or falling to the ground, for she swayed on her little feet, and her body shook all over, like a tree whose leaves are stirred by a sudden wind. And her great breast struggled in violent agitation, as if striving to leap from its bodice in sheer fright. And then in a moment, all at once she changed, becoming still, as though she were an image, carved in stone, upon a temple wall. Only her bosom went on heaving like the sea, as if she could not breathe. And after a while she said, very slowly: My blindness makes my battle hard, for I cannot either see my danger coming, or escape it by flying when it comes. And now, well I discern the terrible consequences of sins committed in a former birth, for now I am without resource, resembling one that walks in inky darkness, whose every step may plunge the point of a sword into his heart. And yet that very blindness which puts me in thy power contains the weapon to defeat thee; for within it I am shut from thee as in an impenetrable fortress, around which thou art wandering in vain. For the Creator has not left even the blind without their proper refuge, and has bestowed upon them inner eyes, as if to balance the want of those without; and being deprived by their infirmity of all that world which others see, they fall back upon the world within, composed of memory and meditation, and patience and emotion, and fidelity and hope. And as I listen to thy words, falling on my ear out of the visible I cannot see, tempting me, and seeking as it were to melt my resolution by a fiery rain, I look into my soul, and I see at a distance, in its darkness, a solitary star in the form of my husband, sending me as it were a ray of support and consolation, to keep me from sinking in the waves of the ocean of despair. And now I tell thee, all thy honied words are worthless, and like arrows, they fall back blunted and shattered on the rock on which I lean, in the form of his memory, and beating on my head like particles of snow they do but add to the mound of cold resistance which they aim removing by their ineffectual storm. And though I know not where he is, nor even if he will return, yet when he does he shall find his honour safe, and my soul like a temple shall preserve within its shrine the candle that he lit, whose steady flame not all the winds of flattery and temptation blown from thine or any other mouth shall ever make extinct, or even cause to flicker for an instant, even in a dream. And like Draupadi, or Damayanti, or Sita, or Sawitri, I shall meet my husband, either in this birth or another, so, as that neither he nor I will be ashamed. And well though I know that I am bodily at thy mercy and in thy power, so that coming thyself or sending others, thou canst carry me by violence away, as I think will be the case, yet shall even that avail thee nothing. For the body thou shall ravish, as I told thee, will be dead, and its soul will be away. For though it is my duty not to quit it, for my husband has left me, as it were, as a deposit in my own hands to be guarded for himself, yet I shall make no effort to conceal it from thee like a coward; it is here for thee to steal. Take, if thou wilt, a thing that can offer no resistance; thou wilt gain absolutely nothing but dishonour for thyself, loving what will not love thee, embracing what will not embrace thee, doomed to remain everlastingly outside, and baulked of that treasure of the heart within, like a robber with an adamantine casket to which he has no key, and which, defying all his efforts to invade it, leaves him with nothing to reward him but his crime. Aye! try, and thou shalt find, that with nothing to defend it, armed only with a memory, the heart of a woman is stronger than all the power of a king. Aye! bring, if thou wilt, the ocean, and the wind, and the darkness to assist thee, and thou shalt find that the little tongue of that flame which is fed on the oil of reminiscence will utterly refuse to be extinguished by them all.