The Substance of a Dream

by F. W. Bain

And I exclaimed with a shout: Kind! Why, what is thy kindness but the very extremity of unkindness? What! and did all thy caresses mean absolutely nothing? And she said, very gently: They meant exactly what they were, gifts and boons, bestowed of sheer compassion: and if from their receipt, thou hast drawn the conclusion that thy affection was returned, it is not so: it is only thy own unjustified construction, for thou art not, and never can be, anything to me, but the thing that thou wilt not be, a mere friend. And I said: What kind of a woman art thou to betray me with kisses? And she said: I am only what I am: but thou art most unfair to me, and instead of peevishly demanding of me what I cannot give, and growing so unreasonably angry, thou oughtest rather to be very grateful to me, for giving thee anything at all. I told thee almost as soon as I had seen thee, in the very beginning of all, that I belonged, body and soul, to Narasinha: and yet notwithstanding, I took pity on thee, for thy misery, and gave thee, by concession, what I might very easily have refused, humouring thy weakness like that of a child, crying for what he cannot have. But never did I promise thee anything beyond: and I even told thee, if thou canst remember it, that it might injure thee and could not do thee any good. But thou wert blind, and as it were buried in thy dream. Did I not warn thee, and entreat thee beforehand, not to blame me, when the dream was over, and reality returned? And when I had surfeited thy longing, and dismissed thee, I meant it to be the end, for it was all I had to give. In all, it is not I, that have in any way whatever deceived thee: thou hast all along only deceived thyself. And if I have deceived at all, it is myself alone I have deceived, by expecting any gratitude for the boon of my compassion, and the favour that I poured on thee with no miser's band, because I blamed myself for being innocently guilty of becoming the unintentional object of thy passion, and its involuntary cause.

XXVIII

And I listened, so utterly confounded by the very simplicity of her apology, which overturned all my accusations, and put me in the wrong, that I stood in silence, unable to find anything to say. And in my stupefaction, I began to laugh. And I said: Ha! Nectar when she turns towards thee: poison when she turns away! Hast thou never heard the Queen's verse? And she said: What! wilt thou actually lay on me the burden of refuting the silly slander of a rhyme, circulated by little rascals merely for want of something else to say? Can I help what they say, or shall I even stoop to listen when they say it, who will say anything of queens, without shame for the envious venom of their own base insignificance, knowing all the time absolutely nothing, but making mere noise, like frogs all croaking together in a marsh? Or if I must absolutely answer, in spite of my disdain, how can I prevent any lover, such as thyself, from persuading himself of what he wishes to believe? For all of them resemble thee, behaving like unreasonable bulls, the very moment that they see me, and pestering me like flies, to my torment, and yet would blame me for driving them away. And every one of them, exactly like thee, imagines me his own, for no reason that I am ever able to discover, although I tell them all, exactly as I told thee, that I belong to Narasinha.

And I said in wrath: I will slice off the head of Narasinha, by and by, as I have done already for some of his tools. And I will not be the plaything of a moment, to be cast aside the next. I have lost a kingdom for thy sake, and will have thee to repay me, whether thou wilt or no. And she said with a smile: Thou art angry, and talking nonsense in thy anger, as angry men will. Dost thou not see that thou art bereft of thy senses? For, kingdom or no kingdom, how canst thou be so silly as to propose to force me, willy nilly, to love thee when I do not love? If I loved thee, I should say so, and all force would be superfluous: if not, it would be not only useless, but injurious to thy own cause, seeing that the more thou forcest, the less wilt thou obtain: nay, whereas now thou art indifferent, thou wilt bring it about that I shall hate thee in the end, as I am beginning to do a very little even now. And then it will be worse for thee in every way. For thou dost not seem ever to remember that I am, after all, not only a woman, but a queen.

And I looked at her as she spoke, saying to myself: She is wrong, for nobody looking at her ever could forget it, even for a moment, just because, like the grace of a lily, it is forgotten by herself, and she would still be a queen, even if she were not a queen at all. And she looks at me, notwithstanding the biting reproof in her words, with exactly the same intoxicating and caressing sweetness, as if I were still a dear friend with whom she were unwilling to quarrel. And I gazed at her, yearning towards her with every fibre of my soul, and yet exasperated almost beyond endurance at the thought that she was keeping me like a stranger at a distance from her heart, in order to preserve it for another. And after a while, I said slowly: If thy affection is not to be given to me, it shall never be given to anybody else. And she said, as if with curiosity: Thou art surely mad. For how canst thou prevent any other from following thy own example, and doing just what thou hast done thyself, losing thy reason at the sight of me, as all men always do? Dost thou not see that my power to excite affection is far greater than thine to prevent it? And I said: It would be very very easy for me to prevent all others from ever loving thee again.

And she looked at me with eyes, in whose unruffled calm there was not even the faintest shadow of any fear. And she said quietly: I understand thee very well, and yet for all that I tell thee thou art raving, and thou art, without knowing it, very like the very man thou hatest most, Narasinha. For often he has said to me the very same thing that thou art saying now: and yet, though according to thee, the thing is very easy, he finds it so difficult as to be utterly impossible. For he cannot endure to do without me, even in a dream, and cannot therefore bring himself to slay me, as he is constantly threatening to do, knowing very well that he might rather slay himself, since once I am gone, he will never find another me, to put in my place. And this is true, even though I cannot understand it: just as I cannot understand what it is that makes me indispensable to thee or to anybody else. For I know it only by its effect. And so I am my own protection, against all his threats, or thine. And if I had thought otherwise, what could have been easier, since thou talkest of easy things, than to have summoned my attendants and bade them put thee out, when it may be, thy life would have paid for thy marvellous impertinence, in intruding unbidden, as perhaps it still may, without any instigation of my own at all? Thou dost not seem to understand that all this while thy own life is in far greater danger than mine; since thou hast done a thing that will not be forgiven thee by others, though I myself have not only forgiven thee, but well understanding the fiery goad that drove thee into my presence, have treated thee, for yet once more, with kindness and condescension far beyond any deserts of thine. And for all return, thou art threatening even to slay me. But I am destitute of fear.

And she stood before me in the moonlight, that turned her as it clung to all her limbs into a thing beautiful beyond all earthly dreams, absolutely fearless, and with a dignity whose royalty was not only that of a queen, but of loveliness laughing to scorn all possible comparison, seeming to say without the need of any words: Art thou brave enough, and fool enough, to lay rude hands on such a thing as I am, or even if thy folly were equal to thy courage, canst thou find it in thy heart to think of violence offered to it, by thyself or any other, even in a dream? And my heart burned, for sheer adoration, and yet strange! it began to sink at the very same time, as I gazed at her, looking at me quietly in return. For there was something absolutely unanswerable, not only in herself, but in everything she said, and yet her very simplicity that overwhelmed me with its soft irrefutable sweetness increased the torture of my hopeless admiration every time she spoke. And suddenly I struck my hands together in despair. And I exclaimed: Ah! thou marvel of a woman and a queen, I am conquered by thee, and I am on the very verge of falling at thy feet in a passion of tears, craving thy forgiveness as a criminal, so bewildering is the double spell of thy beauty and thy intelligence, and the candour of thy strange soul, which drives me mad with its inexplicable charm. But what does it matter to me, hate me or love me, if I am never to see thee any more? Aye! Narasinha may not find it in him to slay thee for thy wayward and beautiful independence, but then he can see thee every day, exactly as he chooses: whereas I, once I go away this night, am outcast: for well I understand that thou or he will see to it that I never come again. Dost thou imagine I can bear it? And again I struck my hands together with a cry. And I exclaimed: Curse on my birth, and the crimes of the births that went before it, that I was not born Narasinha! for he has cut me from my happiness, and stolen from me the very fruit of being born at all!

And in my frenzy, I seized her in my arms once more, desperately clutching, as it were, at the bliss escaping from my reach in her form. And I said to her, as I held her tight: Tell me, had Narasinha never lived, could I have been to thee what he is now? And she extricated herself, very gently, from my arms, and stood back, looking at me with meditative eyes; and after a while, she said doubtfully, yet with a little smile on her lips: Perhaps. But I am not sure. Thou art a little over-bearing. And yet I like thee, somehow, but I love thee not at all. And yet again, it may be, that had I met thee sooner, I might have looked at thee with other eyes. And I bear thee no malice, if indeed thou art a criminal, for any of thy crimes, since I was their occasion. But what after all is the use of supposition as to what might be were Narasinha away, since as it is, he is here, an obstacle in the way, not to be surmounted by any means whatever? And so, thy case is hopeless. And I tried to make thee understand, in vain: since thou wilt not take denial or listen to any reason. And I went to such a length, out of kindness, as to give thee one single evening, packed as full as it could hold with all the sweetness I could think of, giving myself up, so to say, to the insatiable thirst of thy arms, and thy craving desire to be caressed and kissed by only me, and embodying thy dream, and turning myself into an instrument of that nectar of feminine intoxication for which thou wert ready to die, and putting myself without reserve absolutely at thy disposal, only to find my kindness miserably requited by ingratitude and undeserved reproaches, and even menaces and threats. And as I said, to-night, when by underhand contrivance thou didst force thyself upon me, I never punished thee at all, as many another queen might do, but took pity on thy desolation and forgave and overlooked all thy insolence, without being in the very least deceived by thy fustian beginning, which I easily discerned to be a ruse, to enable thee perhaps to steal back into my favour, all founded on a misinterpretation of the woman that I am. For had I really been what people say, and what, listening to them, thou didst imagine me, thy foolish plan might perhaps have been successful, but I am very different indeed. And yet, even so, thy part was played so poorly, that it failed almost as soon as it began, since it needed but a touch of my finger to make thee drop thy mask, and reveal thyself to be, what all the time I knew thee, a lover in the depths of despair. For love is very hard to hide, and thou couldst scarcely hope to deceive even those who are very easy to deceive, as I am not. And as I watched thy clumsy effort, sitting as it did so ill on one so simple and direct as thou art, I could not prevent my compassion from mixing with a very little laughter, remembering the ass in the Panchatantra, who clothed him in a lion's skin, forgetting that his ears betrayed him, to say nothing of his voice. And now for the second time I have given thee something that I would have refused thee altogether, had caresses of compassion been any argument of love. But understand well, that there will be no third opportunity: for this is thy farewell. Go as thou hast come, for I will not attempt to penetrate thy secret, nor have thy footsteps dogged.

XXIX

And as I listened, I knew that all was over, and that her words were my doom: for I understood that she was stronger far than I, and in a position absolutely impregnable by any efforts I might make. And I stood gazing at her silently with a tumult in my soul that could find no utterance in words. And I said at last, in a very low voice: Is thy decision irrevocable, and am I really never to see thee any more? And she said: Even this time is more than I had allowed thee, and I am afraid for thee. Aye! I fear that thy life is the forfeit thou wilt pay. Yet blame not me for anything that may occur. For Narasinha would have slain thee already, as he is furiously jealous of anything that comes near me in the form of a man, had I not myself expressly interfered in thy behalf, making him swear to overlook thy former trespass on a ground that he considers as his own. But he will not listen to me now. And to-morrow, as soon as he discovers what has taken place to-night, for I cannot hide it, he will take measures to prevent thy ever coming back, very likely such as thou thyself hinted at, of me, a little while ago. Thou art looking at me now for the very last time; and remember, I told thee myself, I will take no blame, if thy temerity turns out to have cost thee dear. Farewell, and if thou canst, forget me, and go away to a great distance, without the loss of a single moment. For in a very little while, thou mayst find, there will not even be the chance, and it will be too late.