“This was the secret. You knew it and did not tell me.”
And in the hall was no sound.
“You saw me fed with lies such as these—” (and he flung out his arm against the pictures) “and you did not tell me they were the mask of horror.” She bowed her head upon her hands speechless.
“And I, most pitiable, most ignorant, rejoiced that a son should be given to me, not knowing that such a one is born to a heritage of wretchedness and the inevitable approach of shame and ruin. And from this is no escape, for the Gods have appointed no end to our misery, no door from the prison, but we must live eternally and horribly, old and disgraced in body and mind. Could a man but end it and fall into the dark and be forgotten! O had I known, no child of mine should ever have felt the whip and dragged the chain. I will not blame you who are but a woman,—but my father—my father.”
And in the hall was no sound at all. And the Princess, hiding her face, thought, “Shall I tell him of the end—of Death?” But she dared not.
And he called aloud for the women and said:
“Deface these pictures for they are lies, and the sight of them turns the knife in the wound. Blot them out with blackness.”
So it was done, but the Maharaja in terror bade them redouble the pleasures of the Paradise and of the Garden House. And at great cost he bought a fair slave from the outlands, golden-haired as dawn, sapphire-eyed as blue ice of the Himalaya, white as the elephants’ tusk, skilled in all arts of love, and among the darker beauties of the pleasure chambers she moved radiant as though day had broken forth in starry midnight, and all the neighbouring Kings hearing were envious. And in this beauty all hoped, even the sad Yashodara, and her heart failed her when she saw the Prince’s eyes coldly averted from loveliness that might have stirred the eternal Gods. And again she sent a message to the Maharaja.
“Your son, my lord, will not look upon the beautiful white stranger nor on any. O send him forth in freedom, for penned in these sweet gardens he muses and meditates and what is in his heart I cannot know, but fear very terribly. Yet guard the way that no sad sight approach him, for if he sees more all is lost.”
And again orders were given, and as before the Prince set forth, but this time grave and sad, and the crowds shared his mood and the city could not rejoice.