A Draught of the Blue – An Essence of the Dusk

And then, at last, he stepped forward. And he put out his left hand, and touched her with his forefinger on the shoulder that was bare.

And instantly, as if his touch had filled her with a flood of life, a shiver ran like quicksilver over her stony limbs. And as he started back, to watch, the colour came back into her face, and red blood rushed into her lips, and deep blue suddenly filled her eyes. And the tresses of hair around her head turned all of a sudden a glossy black, that shone with a blue-green lustre, as if reflecting the grassy sheen of her winding robe. And her bosom lifted slowly, and fell again with a deep sigh. And all at once, she abruptly altered her position, and her eyes fell straight on Aja, standing just before her. And she lifted up, first one eyebrow, and then the other, till they formed a perfect bow, for they joined each other in the middle. And she uttered a faint cry, as if in joy, exclaiming: Ha! can it be, and is it thou? Or am I dreaming still?

III

And Aja stood, staring at her with stony gaze, like a mirror of her own surprise. And he said to himself: Surely it is not she, but I myself, that am the dreamer. For here since the sun rose last, I have escaped the desert, and found this city without a man, and acquired a bride of peerless beauty: and now here is another, rising as it were from the dead, and seeming to expect me. And he continued standing silent, gazing at her, sword in hand. And after a while, she said: What! is my form, then, so frightful as to rob thee of thy tongue? Or art thou going to use that sword against me? Speak: but in the meanwhile, let me see whether I have lost the use of my limbs, as thou hast that of thy tongue, after so long a sleep. And she leaped from her little pedestal, and moved a little way here and there, waving her beautiful arms about: and after a while, she came back, and sat down just before him, on one of the fallen pillars that were lying about the ground. And all the while Aja watched her, as if fascinated by a serpent, saying within himself: She moves like nothing I ever saw, save a panther or a gliding snake.68 And then, all at once, she again put up one eyebrow, and said to him with a smile: Must I, then, actually tell thee, that I am Natabhrúkutí?69 Then Aja said: O lady, it is obvious. For thy bent brow would plant arrows even in the heart of the Great Ascetic. And she said again: O husband, is this thy welcome, after so long a separation?

And Aja bounded, as if bitten by a snake. And he exclaimed: Thy husband! What! Am I then thy husband also? Does thy whole sex want to get me for a husband? But O thou beauty of bending brows, how can he be thy husband, that never saw thee in his life before? And only this morning, I was still wifeless, and a day has not elapsed, since I became another's husband. And he stopped short, again confounded at the effect of his own words. For hardly had they passed his lips, when Natabhrúkutí started up, swelling with rage and convulsed with fury, with eyes that blazed like fiery stars. And she exclaimed: Never! never! Never shall she possess thee, nor any other than I myself. And then, like a flash of lightning, her rage vanished as quickly as it came. And she looked at him with imploring eyes, and said: Slay me now, with thy long bright sword, and send me back to that nonentity out of which thou hast just recalled me: but speak not of another woman in front of me. Alas! and am I all forgotten? And tears rolled from her great blue eyes, and fell like suppliants at her feet.

And Aja put up his left hand, and tugged at his hair in the extremity of his amazement. And he said: O thou strange offended lady, I am utterly bewildered, and resemble one that has lost his way at midnight in a wood. And thy anger and thy grief are alike altogether incomprehensible. How can I possibly have forgotten one, whom as I just now told thee, I never saw in my life before? Then she said: Nay, not in this life, but the last. For I was the wife of thy former birth.

Then Aja laughed, and he said: O beauty, who remembers his former birth? For like every other man, and like my ancestor the sun, I have risen up into light out of the sea of dark oblivion, into which I must sink again at last. And then she looked at him with a deep sigh. And she said: Alas! This is a punishment indeed, and worse by far than all the rest, if after having endured so long the state of a stone upon a wall, I am again become a woman, only to find myself repudiated and all forgotten, by him, on whose account I suffered all. Listen, then, and I will tell thee the story of thy former birth. It may be that, in the hearing, some scattered reminiscences will be as it were awakened, to stir again in the dark lethargy of thy sleeping soul.

IV

And then she began to speak. And as she spoke, she leaned forward, as she sat upon the fallen pillar, and fastened her great eager eyes like magnets on his own. And as Aja watched them, they played as it were upon his heart. For their colour wavered and changed and faltered, shifting ever from hue to hue, turning golden and ruddy amber, and emerald-green and lotus-blue; and over her eyes her arching brows lifted and fell and played and flickered, fixing his troubled soul like nails, and rivetting his attention, till her singing voice sounded in his head like a distant tune crooned in the ear of a sleepy man. And she waved slowly her long round arms, all the while she spoke. And she said: Far away, over the sea, lies thy own forgotten land, and presently I will tell thee, and even show thee, where it is. And there it was, in our former birth, that thou and I were boy and girl. But thou wert the son of a mighty King, and I was only a Brahmani, a poor man's daughter, and my father was an old ascetic, far below thee in everything else but caste. And I lived alone with my old father, in the very heart of a great forest, in a little hut of bark, over which the málati creeper grew so thick that nothing was visible of that little hut, except its door. And then one day I was seen by thee, standing still in that very door, with my pitcher on my head: as thou wert passing through the wood to hunt upon thy horse. And that moment was like a sponge, that blotted from the mind of each everything but the other's image. And I made of thee my deity, and forgot everything in the three great worlds, for thee alone. And thou, that day, didst clean forget thy hunting: or rather, the God of Love showed thee game of another kind,70 and from pursuing thou didst fall to wooing a quarry that wished for nothing so much as to be thy prey. And we married each other that very day, which ah! thou hast all forgotten. What! dost thou not remember how I used to meet thee every day in the little hut, when my father was away in the wood engaged in meditation? What! hast thou really all forgotten how it was thy supreme delight to bring me garments and costly jewels, which I put on for thy amusement, thy forest-queen of the little hut? Has thy memory cast away every vestige of reminiscence of thy old sweet love in the little hut? So then it happened that on a day we were together, blind and drunk with each other's presence, shut within the little hut like a pair of bees in a nectared lotus. And I was standing like an idol, dressed like the queen of a chakrawarti,71 loaded with gold on wrists and feet, with great pearls wound about my neck; and thou wert contemplating me, thy creature,72 with intoxication, and hard indeed it was to tell which of us two was the idol, and which was the devotee. And as we woke up from a kiss that lasted like infinity, lo! my father stood before us. And he said slowly: Abandoned daughter, that hast forgot thy duty in thy passion for this King's son, become what thou hast represented, an idol73 of stone on the wall of a ruined temple far away: and thou, her guilty lover, fall again into another birth, and be separated from thy guilty love. Then being besought by us, to fix some period to the curse, he said again: When ye two shall meet again, and thy husband in his curiosity shall touch thee with his finger, she shall regain her woman's state, and be as she was before. And now all this has come about, exactly as he said. And I have found thee once again, only to find alas! alas! that thou hast left thy heart behind thee in that old delicious birth.

V

So as he listened, Aja's soul was filled as it were with a mingled essence of wonder and irresolution and sheeny beauty and singing sound. For the tone of her voice was like a lute, and before his eyes hovered a picture of waving arms and witching curves, out of which her dreamy eyes, from which he could not take his own, seemed as it were to speak to him of love reproachful and old regret. And all at once, with a violent effort, he roused himself as if from sleep with open eyes. And he shifted his sword to the other hand, and passed his right across his brow. And he said, in some confusion: O thou strange and sweet-tongued woman, certain this much is, that I am filled by thee with emotion that I do not understand. And yet I know not what to think, or even say. For even apart from the promptings of a former birth, thy beauty and thy haunting voice, which I seem as it were to have heard before, are quite sufficient to rouse emotion even in a stone, much more in a man of flesh and blood.

Then she shook her head sadly, looking at him with glistening eyes; and she said, with a smile of ineffable sweetness: Ah! this is as I thought, and the instinct of thy former birth is clouded over and effaced, by thy meeting with this other woman in the morning of this very day. Alas! how small, how very small, the interval of space and time that divides the paradise of joy from the dungeon of despair! For had this our reunion been sooner by only a single day, I should have caught thy heart before it had been occupied by this all too fortunate other woman, who now holds it like a fortress, garrisoned by a prior claim. But what is this priority of claim? Can she, who by thine own confession has known thee only a single day, dare to dispute priority with the darling of thy former birth?74 Wilt thou break thy faith with me, to keep thy faith with her? Aye! and wilt thou, after all, gain so much by the exchange? Is she beautiful, then, this other woman? But I am beautiful, too? And she stood up, and looked at Aja with her head thrown back and proud eyes, as though to challenge his condemnation of her own consummate beauty. And she said again: Is she, then, this other beauty, either more faithful or more beautiful than I am? Speak, and tell me if thou canst, in what I am inferior, or why I am to be despised, in comparison with her.

And Aja looked at her again, and felt abashed, and half ashamed, he knew not why. And he murmured to himself: She does not lie: for beautiful she is indeed, and need not fear comparison with any woman in the world. And it may be, she is partly right, and if I had met her yesterday, before my heart was full, she would have had little difficulty in entering in and capturing it, almost without resistance. And he stood looking at her silently, uncertain what to say or do, and half inclined to pity her, and half afraid of her and of himself, admiring her against his will, and as it were confessing by his very silence the power of her appeal. For notwithstanding the preoccupation of his heart, his youth and his sex became as it were allies with her against his resolution, compelling him to acknowledge the supremacy of the cunning god, and the spell of feminine attraction incarnate in her form.

And she stood there before him, for a little, with beauty as it were heightened by resentful reproach of the slighting of itself, and the disregard of its tried affection. And then all at once she sank down upon the ground, as if she were tired, and remained sitting among the poppies, with her chin resting on her left knee, which she embraced with her arms, watching him, and as it were, waiting with humility and patience for a decision in her case. And every now and then, she closed her eyes, and opened them again, as if to make sure that he was there.

And Aja looked round in the silence, at the poppies and the lotuses, and the great owls that seemed to watch him, and back again at her. And his head began to whirl, and he muttered to himself: Is this a dream, and what does it all mean? And is she returning to the condition of an image, disgusted by my coldness and disdain? And what is to be done? And he looked at her face, deprived, by the closing of their lids, of the moon of her eyes, and resting like a mask upon its chin. And he said within himself: Her eyebrows move, as if they were alive. And he felt as it were unable to look away from them: and at last, annoyed with himself, he closed his eyes also, as though to escape their persecution.

VI

And then, he said to himself: This is cowardice, and after all, no refuge; for I seem to see her still, through the shutters of my lids. And he opened his eyes once more. And instantly, he leaped from the ground like a wounded stag, with a cry. For the wood, with all its lotuses and poppies, was gone. And in its place, he saw before him a forest with its great green trees all lit by the shining of the sun. And just in front of him there stood a little hut, buried in the blossom of the málati creeper. And in its doorway was standing a young Brahman woman, with a pitcher on her head. And she beckoned to him with a smile, and he looked, and lo! it was Natabhrúkutí. Then moved as if against his will, on feet that carried him towards her as it were of their own accord, he approached her. And as he drew nearer, there came from that creeper a wave of perfume, resembling that of jasmine, but sweeter, and so pungent that it entered like fire into his soul. And then she lifted the pitcher from her head, and set it down upon the ground, and caught him by the hand, and drew him within the hut. And there she cast herself into his arms, whispering in his ear, very low, so as to caress it as she spoke with her lips: My father is away, and now we are alone, and the day is all before us. Come now, what shall I do for thy delight? And she ran and shut the door; and then, taking from a chest rich clothes and splendid jewels, she began to put them on, saying as she did so: See! am I becoming more fit to be thy queen? And he watched her, stupefied, like one in a dream, and all the while she bathed him with intoxicating side glances shot like arrows from the bow of her arching brows. And at last, she came slowly towards him, walking on tip-toe, and attitudinising, placing herself exactly in the posture in which he had seen her first among the poppies on the wall, with one hand on her hip. And she said, lifting her brow, with a smile that stole his reason: Now, then, the idol is ready for the devotee. And at that moment the door opened, and an old Brahman entered through it. And he said slowly: Abandoned daughter, that hast forgot thy duty in thy passion for this King's son, become what thou hast represented, an idol of stone on the wall of a ruined temple far away; and thou her guilty lover, fall into another birth, and be separated from thy guilty love.

And then, Aja heard no more. The world whirled around him; the blackness of night closed over his soul; he uttered a terrible cry, and fell to the ground in a swoon.

VII

And when he came to himself, he was back again among the poppies in the tamála wood. And he was lying on the ground, with Natabhrúkutí bending over him, holding him by the hand, with anxiety in her eyes. And instantly he started up, and seizing his sword, stood gazing at her with stupefaction. And he said to himself: Am I dead or dreaming? And what does it all mean? Is it a delusion of the Creator, or a mirage and a madness of the desert, out of which I have never yet escaped at all? Aye! beyond a doubt, I am wandering still in the waste of sand, raving mad, and dying, and haunted by phantoms that are the premonitors of approaching death.

So as he stood, balancing in the swing of perplexity, and doubting his own reason, Natabhrúkutí looked at him fixedly, with concern and affection and curiosity in her eyes. And she said: Surely thou art ill. And why then dost thou shrink from me, as though I were a thing of terror: I, who ask for nothing but to tend thee all my life? For it was but now, as we spoke together in this wood, I looked up and saw thee suddenly close thy eyes. And as I watched thee, wondering to see thee sleeping as it were erect, there burst from thy lips a fearful cry, and I had but time to catch thee falling, and let thee sink upon the ground. And I brought thee to thyself, by fanning thee, as well as I might, with this great leaf.

And she held it up before him, while he continued to gaze at her in silence. And as he did not speak, she looked at him curiously, and muttered under her breath, as though speaking to herself, and not intending him to hear: Can he have suddenly recollected his former birth, and is this the reason why he is staring at me, as if wishing to compare me with a picture in his head? And as he still kept silence, presently she said aloud: Dear, thou art sick: and much in need of medicines, such as I alone can give thee. Why wilt thou not confide in me? For I am a cunning leech, and know the virtue of every herb and every vegetable drug better than Dhanwantari75 himself. And I have made myself mistress of every species of the art of healing, and in particular, I have fed myself on perfumes, and on the essences of flowers, and all the scented odours of aromatic shrubs, till I have myself become as it were a very attar, incarnate in a woman's form. Dost thou doubt it, and think me to be boasting? then try me, and I will prove to thee my power by experiment, in any way thou wilt. I will soothe and shampoo76 thee with a hand softer than a snowflake's fall and cooler than the icy moon: or, if thou wilt, I will croon to thee old airs, and put thee to sleep like a tired child, resting thy head on this bosom which once was thy delight, with melodies that shall speak to thee of drowzy bees and moaning winds: or I will steal thy waking senses from thee and lure them into slumber as it were against thy will by snaring them with fragrances more luscious than that párijáta blossom, which Wishnu once trailed through the intoxicated world, to drive it into madness at the moment, and leave it filled with inconsolable regret when it was gone. See, take this, and smell it, and thou wilt be better even now. And she held out towards him, in the lotus of her hand, a tiny flower, in colour like an atom of the concentrated essence of the sky. And as Aja looked at it, there came from it a stream of a sharp and biting scent, that rushed into his soul, coming laden as it were with reminiscence and suggestions of the past; so that he said to himself: Ha! of what does this remind me, and where is it that I smelled its almost intolerable sweet before? And suddenly, the little hut rushed into his mind, and he exclaimed: It is the very smell of the creeper on its roof. And instantly, a feeling of amazement that almost overcame him, mingled with terror, crept like a shudder over his limbs, and his hair stood on end. And he looked at Natabhrúkutí, who was watching him intently, and said, hoarsely: Who art thou, thou strange beauty, and what dost thou want of me? And what is the meaning of these inexplicable mysteries, before which I feel as if my reason were deserting me, and I were about to faint again?

VIII

Then she laughed, and said: Fair boy, I am only that bitter-sweet,77 a woman: and I want no more than what every woman wants, the man she loves, and that is thou. Aye! dost thou ask me, who and what I am? Listen then, and I will tell thee. I am a bee, which not like other bees roams roving to flower after flower, but confines itself exclusively to one. I am a breeze, which not like other breezes blows fickle and inconstant now hither and now thither, but is fixed and ever steady, coming straight from Malaya laden with the sandal of affection to lay it at thy feet. I am only the echo of a voice which is thyself, the shadow of a substance and the reflection of a sun. I am like the other half of the god that carries the moon upon his head, the twin, the duplicate and counterpart of a deity who is thou. I am Rati, rejoicing to find again the body of her husband, and thou art Love himself returned to life whom I have found. I am an essence of the ocean, but unlike it, I hold within my heart not many pearls, but only one, which is thyself. I am a wick, consuming in thy flame, and like the music of a lute, I am a thing wholly compounded of melodies and tones, whose mood and being are dependent on the player, who is thou. Art thou sad? then I am also: art thou joyous? so am I: my soul is tossed about, and hangs on thy smiling or thy sighing, as a criminal depends on the sentence of the judge. And like a crystal, I am colourless78 without thee, but ready on the instant to assume every tinge of the colour of thyself. Cast thy eyes upon me, and thou shalt see as in a glass thy every mood painted on the surface of my face. Ah! dost thou ask me what I am? Alas! I am a target for the poisoned arrows which Love shoots at me in the form of thy beauty greater than his own. And I am like a bare and withered, leafless and frost-bitten tree, which has suddenly shot up into blossom at the coming of spring in thy form. But as for thee, why, O why dost thou regard me that live for only thee as if I were a deadly snake, and thou a startled deer? In vain, in vain, dost thou endeavour to repel me, for I will not be repelled. I will melt thy cold ice in thy despite, by the fire of my affection, and drown thee in its flood, and sweep thee away from the rocks of thy resistance till thou art lost for ever in its dark and pearly depths.

And as Aja stood, listening in confusion to her words, which poured from her like a torrent, suddenly she clapped her hands, and exclaimed, as he started again at her vehemence: Ha! shall I tell thee, thou wilful and reluctant boy, of what thou dost remind me, standing as it were aghast, and obstinately set against me, mute, and yet asking what I am? Know, that long ago there was a king, who had for wives a thousand queens. And it happened that one day, he went with his wives to ramble in the heart of a forest. So after sporting for a while, he grew tired, in the heat of the day, and lay down and fell asleep. Then all his queens stole away and left him lying, and went roaming up and down, very strange creatures in that wild rough wood, looking like living flowers of every hue and kind, that had somehow or other got free from their roots, a body of deer-eyed decoys let loose by Love the Hunter, to lure into his toils every man that should behold them. So as they rambled here and there, they came suddenly on an old ascetic. And he was standing still, half buried in the hills of ants, themselves covered over by his long white hair, immersed in meditation. Then all those fair women went up and stood around him in a cluster of beautiful curiosity, wondering at the sight of him, and asking each other in amazement, what in the world he could possibly be. So as they crowded round him, that old ascetic emerged from his trance, and as thou art doing, stood silent and aghast, thinking, as perhaps thou dost thyself, that Indra must have sent him all the nymphs of heaven in a body, to lure him from the path of liberation. For, O, thou beautiful suspicious youth, what is there so terrible about me, as to cause thee to shrink from my approach? Know, that many would be glad to be wooed as was that old ascetic, and as thou art now.

IX

And then, Aja strove to awake as it were from a dream. And he shook himself, as if to shake it off, and he said to himself: I feel that I am falling as it were a victim to the spell of this passionate and subtle beauty; and now, unless I stiffen and steel myself against her, I shall undoubtedly be bewitched and beguiled beyond the possibility of escape. And he summoned his resolution, and said, with a semblance of composure: Fair one, thou dost thyself no injustice in comparing thyself alone to a thousand queens: for thou art a very incarnation of all the bewildering fascination of thy sex. And yet, potent as they are, thy charms are wasted, and resemble blunted arrows when directed against me. For as I have already told thee, I am pledged to another, and proof against thy spell, as doubtless was thy old ascetic against that bevy of straying queens.

And then Natabhrúkutí smiled, and she shook at him her finger, as she answered: Rash boy, beware! Be not too sure of the adamantine quality of thy resistance, nor even of thy wisdom in resisting me at all. And beware of provoking the indignation of slighted Love, who may make of thee a signal example of his vengeance. Take care, lest annoyed with thy obstinacy in rejecting what he offers thee for nothing, he should deprive thee even of that other beauty, on whose account alone it is that I am held by thee so cheap. Poor youth! but that my lips are tied, I could enlighten thee. Art thou, who art so ready lightly to disdain me, art thou, I say, so sure, so very sure, that thou art thyself the only lover of this much married beauty, whom thou sawest, as thou sayest, for the very first time in thy life to-day? Art thou so sure, so very sure, that she is not deceiving thee, and that thou art not merely the last of the many lovers whom she toys with for a moment, and then carelessly casts away? Art thou so very certain that thou hast never had a predecessor? And Aja started, in spite of himself. For the word recalled to him the manner of the old King. And Natabhrúkutí saw it. And she looked at him as it were with compassion, and said: Alas, unhappy boy: thou seest that in thy youth and inexperience such an idea had not occurred to thee. Little art thou qualified to cope with a woman's guile.