The caravan-leader complied with her request and fetched the girl, and on her appearance Utpalavarṇā conceived affection for her. One day, when she was dressing the girl’s hair, she perceived a scar on her head, and asked her what had caused it.
“I know nothing about it,” replied the girl, “except that my grandmother has told me that my mother once tossed me to my father in a fit of passion, and I fell upon the threshold, and that was how the scar was produced.”
“What is your grandmother’s name?”
“So and so.”
“And your mother’s?”
“Utpalavarṇā.” [[210]]
Then Utpalavarṇā thought, “As there I was mother and joint-wife, and here my daughter is joint-wife, I must anyhow depart.” So she veiled her head and went away from the house.
Seeing that a caravan was starting for Vaiśālī she attached herself to it, entered into intimate relations with the merchants, and arrived at Vaiśālī together with them. When the courtesans residing in Vaiśālī asked why the merchants from Mathurā had nothing to do with them, one of their number said, “Is it not because they have brought with them a Gandhāra woman of such beauty that we are not worthy to wash her feet?” Then they all assembled and betook themselves to Utpalavarṇā and invited her, as her vocation was the same as theirs, to enter among them. Utpalavarṇā laid aside her head-dress and straightway went unto them.
As they sat one day at the drinking-board they discoursed about the various merchants whom they had relieved of divers sums. Now there lived in Vaiśālī a young grocer named Anishtaprāpta, whom none of them had as yet been able to allure. They said, “Whoever amongst us succeeds in alluring the young grocer, her will we style a capable woman.” Utpalavarṇā asked whether in case she succeeded in alluring him, they would recognise her as their mistress. They replied that they would; in return for which she promised that if she failed she would pay sixty Kārshāpaṇas.
Having hired an apartment near the grocer’s dwelling, she gave her maid instructions to buy perfumes from him every day. In case he asked her for whom she bought them, she was to reply that a young man of good family had come to Utpalavarṇā’s house, and that it was for him that they were intended. The maid acted in accordance with these instructions. After a time, Utpalavarṇā told her maid to procure from the same young man, bitter, acid, and tart drugs. If he asked for whom they were [[211]]intended, she was to say that the young man of good family was ill, and that she had bought the drugs for him. If he asked whose money it was that was paid, she was to say that Utpalavarṇā paid it. The maid did as she ordered. When the grocer saw that Utpalavarṇā was providing for the invalid out of her own means, he conceived a liking for her, and told her maid to let her know that he wished to pay her a visit. She executed the commission, but Utpalavarṇā told her to say to him that the young man of good family was not yet cured.