...
“Hum ne dil sunum ko dya
Phir kissee ko kya?”
“I have felt the pain of love, ask not of whom:
I have felt the pangs of absence, ask not of whom:”
...
“I have given my heart to my beloved,
What is that to another?”
Mulka was divorced from Mirza Selīm, and legally married to her present husband. We dined with Mr. Gardner in the outer house; the dinner was of native dishes, which were most excellent. During the repast, two dishes were sent over from the Begam, in compliment to her guests, which I was particularly desired to taste, as the Timoorian ladies pride themselves on their cookery, and on particular occasions will superintend the making of the dishes themselves; these dishes were so very unlike, and so superior to any food I had ever tasted, that I never failed afterwards to partake of any dish when it was brought to me, with the mysterious whisper, “It came from within.” It would be incorrect to say, “The Begam has sent it;” “It came from within,” being perfectly understood by the initiated.
In the evening we returned to the zenāna, and were ushered into a long and large apartment, supported down the centre by eight double pillars of handsome native architecture. The floor of the room was covered with white cloth; several lamps of brass (chirāgh-dāns) were placed upon the ground, each stand holding, perhaps, one hundred small lamps. In the centre of the room a carpet was spread, and upon that the gaddī and pillows for the Begam; the gaddī or throne of the sovereign is a long round pillow, which is placed behind the back for support, and two smaller at the sides for the knees; they are placed upon a small carpet of velvet, or of kimkhwāb (cloth of gold); the whole richly embroidered and superbly fringed with gold. Seats of the same description, but plain and unornamented, were provided for the visitors. A short time after our arrival, Mulka Begam entered the room, looking like a dazzling apparition; you could not see her face, she having drawn her dopatta (veil) over it; her movements were graceful, and the magnificence and elegance of her drapery were surprising to the eye of a European.