In the city of Ujjayani,[24] within sight of the palace, dwelt a Brahman and his wife, who, being old and poor, and having nothing else to do, had applied themselves to the practice of austere devotion.[25] They fasted and refrained from drink, they stood on their heads, and they held their arms for weeks in the air; they prayed till their knees were like pads; they disciplined themselves with scourges of wire; and they walked about unclad in the cold season, and in summer they sat within a circle of flaming wood, till they became the envy and admiration of all the plebeian gods that inhabit the lower heavens. In fine, as a reward for their exceeding piety, the venerable pair received at the hands of a celestial messenger an apple of the tree Kalpavriksha—a fruit which has the virtue of conferring eternal life upon him that tastes it.
Scarcely had the god disappeared, when the Brahman, opening his toothless mouth, prepared to eat the fruit of immortality. Then his wife addressed him in these words, shedding copious tears the while:
‘To die, O man, is a passing pain; to be poor is an interminable anguish. Surely our present lot is the penalty of some great crime committed by us in a past state of being.[26] Callest thou this state life? Better we die at once, and so escape the woes of the world!’
Hearing these words, the Brahman sat undecided, with open jaws and eyes fixed upon the apple. Presently he found tongue: ‘I have accepted the fruit, and have brought it here; but having heard thy speech, my intellect hath wasted away; now I will do whatever thou pointest out.’
The wife resumed her discourse, which had been interrupted by a more than usually copious flow of tears. ‘Moreover, O husband, we are old, and what are the enjoyments of the stricken in years? Truly quoth the poet—
Die loved in youth, not hated in age.
If that fruit could have restored thy dimmed eyes, and deaf ears, and blunted taste, and warmth of love, I had not spoken to thee thus.’
After which the Brahman threw away the apple, to the great joy of his wife, who felt a natural indignation at the prospect of seeing her goodman become immortal, whilst she still remained subject to the laws of death; but she concealed this motive in the depths of her thought, enlarging, as women are apt to do, upon everything but the truth. And she spoke with such success, that the priest was about to toss in his rage the heavenly fruit into the fire, reproaching the gods as if by sending it they had done him an injury. Then the wife snatched it out of his hand, and telling him that it was too precious to be wasted, bade him arise and gird his loins and wend him to the Regent’s palace, and offer him the fruit—as King Vikram was absent—with a right reverend brahmanical benediction. She concluded with impressing upon her unworldly husband the necessity of requiring a large sum of money as a return for his inestimable gift. ‘By this means,’ she said, ‘thou mayst promote thy present and future welfare.’[27]
Then the Brahman went forth, and standing in the presence of the Raja, told him all things touching the fruit, concluding with, ‘O, mighty prince! vouchsafe to accept this tribute, and bestow wealth upon me. I shall be happy in your living long!’