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AN ESSENCE OF THE DUSK
_Love turns venom, now I see, Flouted Beauties vipers be._
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT
BY
F.W. BAIN
DEDICATED TO THE OTHER SEX.
PREFACE.
More generally known, perhaps, than any other Hindoo legend, is thestory of the demon, RAHU, who brings about ECLIPSES, by devouring theSun and Moon. For when the gods had upchurned the nectar, the delectableButter of the Brine, Rahu's mouth watered at the very sight of it: and"in the guise of a god" he mingled unperceived among them, to partake.But the Sun and Moon, the watchful Eyes of Night and Day, detected him,and told Wishnu, who cast at him his discus, and cut his body from hishead: but not until the nectar was on the way down his throat. Hence,though the body died, the head became immortal: and ever since, a thingunique, "no body and all head," a byword among philosophers, he takesrevenge on Sun and Moon, the great Taletellers, by "gripping" them inhis horrid jaws, and holding on, till he is tired, or can be persuadedto let go. Hence, in some parts of India, the doleful shout of thecountry people at eclipses: _Chor do! chor do[1]!_ and hence, also, theprimary and surface meaning of our title: _A Digit of the Moon in theDemon's grip_: in plain English, _an eclipse of the moon_. And yet,legend though it be, there is something in the old mythological way ofputting the case, which describes the situation in eclipses, far betterthan our arid scientific prose. I shall not easily forget, how, as weslid like ghosts at midnight, through the middle of the desert, alongthe Suez Canal[2], I watched the ghastly pallor of the wan unhappy moon,as the horrible shadow crept slowly over her face, stealing away herbeauty, and turning the lone and level sands that stretched away belowto a weird and ashy blue, as though covering the earth with a sepulchralsympathetic pall. For we caught the "griesly terror," Rahu, at hishorrid work, towards the end of May, four years ago.
[1] _Let go! let go!_
[2] Though nothing can be less romantic than a canal, gliding through that of Suez is a strange experience at night. Your great ship seems to move, swift and noiseless, through the very sand: and if only you could get there without knowing where you were, you would think that you were dreaming.
But our title has yet another meaning underneath the first, for _Ahi_,the name employed for Rahu (like all other figures in Indian mythology,he is known by many names), also means a _snake_. _Beauty persecuted bya snake_ is the subject of the story. That story will presently explainitself: but the relation between _Rahu_, or eclipses, and a snake is socuriously illustrated by a little insignificant occurrence that happenedto myself, that the reader will doubtless forgive me for making himacquainted with it.
Being at Delhi, not many years ago, I seized the opportunity to visitthe Kutub Minar. There was famine in the land. At every station I hadpassed upon the way were piled the hides of bullocks, and from the trainyou might see their skeletons lying, each one bleaching where it diedfor want of fodder, scattered here and there on the brown and burningearth; for even every river bed was waterless, and not a single blade ofgreen could you descry, for many hundred miles. And hence it came about,that as I gazed upon the two emaciated hacks that were to pull me fromthe station, a dozen miles out, and as many more back, I could bringmyself to sit behind them only by the thought that thereby I should savethem from a load far greater than my own, that would have been theirfate on my refusal. Therefore we started, and did ultimately arrive, inthe very blaze of noon.
The Kutub Minar is a needle of red stone, that rises from a plain asflat as paper to a height of two hundred and fifty feet; and you mightcompare it, as you catch, approaching, glimpses of it at a distance, toa colossal chimney, a Pharos, or an Efreet of the Jinn. The last wouldbe the best. For nothing on the surface of the earth can parallel thescene of desolation which unrols itself below, if you climb its 380steps and look out from the dizzy verge: a thing that will test both themuscle of your knees and the steadiness of your nerves. Round you isempty space: look down, the pillar bends and totters, and you seem torock in air; you shudder, you are falling; and away, away below, far asthe eye can carry, you see the dusty plain, studded with a thousandtombs and relics of forgotten kings. There is the grim old fortress ofthe Toghlaks: there is the singular observatory of the raja astronomer,Jaya Singh: and there the tomb, Humaioon's tomb, before which Hodson,Hodson the brave, Hodson the slandered, Hodson the unforgotten, sat, fortwo long hours, still, as if man and horse were carved in stone, withthe hostile crowd that loathed and feared him tossing and seething andsurging round him, waiting for the last Mogul to come out and be ledaway. The air is thick, and sparkles with blinding dust and glare, andthe wind whistles in your ears. Over the bones of dynasties, the hotwind wails and sobs and moans. Aye! if a man seeks for melancholy, Iwill tell him where to find it--at the top of the old Kutub Minar.
And then, that happened which I had foreseen. We had not gone a mileupon our homeward way, when one of the horses fell. Therefore,disregarding the asseverations of my rascally Jehu that the remaininganimal was fully equal to the task alone, I descended, and proceeded onfoot. But a ten mile walk on the Delhi plain in the hottest part of theday is not a thing to be recommended. After plodding on for about twohours, I was, like Langland, "wery forwandred," and went me to rest, notalas! by a burnside, but in the shadow of one of the innumerable littletombs that stand along the dusty road. There I lay down and fell asleep.
Nothing induces slumber like exertion under an Indian sun. When Iawoke, that sun was setting. A little way before me, the yellow walls ofDelhi were bathed in a ruddy glow; the minarets of the Great Mosquestood out sharp against the clear unspotted amber sky. And as I watchedthem, I suddenly became aware that I was myself observed with interestby a dusky individual, who was squatted just in front of me, and whorose, salaaming, when he saw that I was awake. It appeared that I had,so to say, fallen into a "nest of vipers;" that I had unwittinglyinvaded the premises of a snake dealer, who, no doubt for solid reasons,had made my friendly tomb the temporary repository of hisstock-in-trade.
The Indian snake charmer, _garuda, hawadiga_[3], or whatever else theycall him, is as a rule but a poor impostor. He goes about with onefangless cobra, one rock snake, and one miserable mongoose, stranglingat the end of a string. My dweller in tombs was richer than all histribe in his snakes, and in his eyes. I have never seen anybody elsewith real cat's eyes: eyes with exactly that greenish yellow luminousglare which you see when you look at a cat in the dark. They gleamed androlled in the evening sun, over a row of shining teeth, as their ownersquatted down before me, liberating one after another from little bagsand baskets an amazing multitude of snakes, which he fetched in batchesfrom the interior of the tomb, till the very ground seemed alive withthem[4]. Some of them he handled only with the greatest respect, and bymeans of an iron prong. Outside the Zoo (where they lose in effect) Inever saw so many together before: and it is only when you see a numberof these reptiles together that you realise what a strange uncannybeing, after all, is a snake: and as you watch him, lying, as it were,in wait, beautiful exceedingly, but with a beauty that inspires you witha shudder, his eyes full of cruelty and original sin, and his tongue ofculumny and malice, you begin to understand his influence in allreligions. I was wholly absorbed in their snaky evolutions, and buriedin mythological reminiscences, when my _garuda_ roused me suddenly, bysaying: _Huzoor_, look!
[3] _Hawa_, in Canarese, is the name of Rahu.
[4] I did not count them, but there were several dozen, nearly all different. I have reason to believe that this man must have been one of the disciples of a former very cele
brated snake charmer, who was known all over India.
He leaned over, and administered with his bare hand a vicious dig to amagnificent hamadryad, that lay coiled upon itself in its open basket.The creature instantly sat up, with a surge of splendid passion,hissing, bowing, and expanding angrily its great tawny hood. The_garuda_ put his _pungi_ to his lips, and blew for a while upon it a lowand wheezy drone,--the invariable prelude to a little _jadoo_, or blackart,--which the beautiful animal appeared to appreciate: and then,pointing with the end of his pipe to the "spectacles" on its hood, hesaid, with that silky, insinuating smile which is characteristic of thescamp: _Huzoor, dekho, namas karta_[5]:--
_Nagki phani, chand ka dukh Uski badi, ap ka sukh_[6].
[5] _See, he makes obeisance._
[6] Which we may roughly render: _Hood of snake brings joy and rue, this to moon and that to you._ In all Oriental saws, jingle counts for much.
I did not understand his lunar allusion, but, judging that his rhyminggibberish, like that of the rascally priests in Apuleius, was acarefully prepared oracle of general application, kept in stock for thecozening of such prey as myself, I repeated to him my favourite Hinduproverb[7], and gave him, in exchange for his benevolent cheque on thefuture, a more commonplace article of present value, which led to ourparting on the most amicable terms. But I did him injustice, perhaps.Long afterwards, having occasion to consult an astronomical chart, withreference to this very story, all at once I started, and in an instant,the golden evening, the walls of Delhi, and my friend of the many snakesand sinister eyes, suddenly rose up again into my mind. For there,staring at me out of the chart, was the mark on the cobra's head. It isthe sign still used in modern astronomy for "the head and tail of thedragon," the nodes indicating the point of occultation, the symbol ofeclipse.
[7] "_Tulsi, in this world hobnob with everybody: for you never know in what guise the deity may present himself._" In the original it is a rhyming stanza.
What then induced or inspired the _garuda_ to connect me with the moon?Was it really black art, divination, or was it only a coincidence?Reason recommends the latter alternative: and yet, the contrarypersuasion is not without its charm. Who knows? It may be, that the soulgrows to its atmosphere as well as the body, and living in a land wheredreams are realities, and all things are credible, and history is only afairy tale: the land of the moon and the lotus and the snake, old godsand old ruins, former births, second sight, and idealism: it falls back,unconsciously mesmerised, under the spell of forgotten creeds.
POONA,
_April, 1906._
CONTENTS.
I. A HAUNTED BEAUTY
II. A TOTAL ECLIPSE
III. A FATAL KISS
A Haunted Beauty.
I.
_May that triumphant Lord protect us, who as he stands in mysterious meditation, bathed in twilight, motionless, and ashy pale[1], with the crystal moon in his yellow hair, appears to the host of worshippers on his left, a woman, and to those on his right, a man._
[1] Being actually smeared with ashes. The god is of course Shiwa, and the allusion is to his _Ardhanari_, or half male, half female form.
There lived of old, on the edge of the desert, a raja of the race of thesun. And like that sun reflected at midday in the glassy depths of theManasa lake, he had an image of himself in the form of a son[2], whoexactly resembled him in every particular, except age. And he gave himthe name of Aja, for he said: He is not another, but my very self thathas conquered death, and passed without birth straight over into anotherbody. Moreover, he will resemble his ancestor, and the god after whom Ihave called him Aja[3]. So as this son grew up, his father's delight inhim grew greater also. For he was tall as a _shala_ tree, and verystrong, and yet like another God of Love: for his face was morebeautiful than the face of any woman, with large eyes like lapis-lazuli,and lips like laughter incarnate: so that his father, as often as helooked at him, said to himself: Surely the Creator has made a mistake,and mixed up his male and female ingredients, and made him half andhalf. For if only he had had a twin sister, it would have been difficultto tell with certainty, which was which.
[2] This punning assonance is precisely in the vein of the original.
[3] This name (pronounce Aj- to rhyme with _trudge_) meaning both _unborn_ and _a goat_, is a name of the sun (who was a goat in Assyria), the soul, Brahma, Wishnu, Shiwa, the God of Love, and others. It was also the name of Rama's grandfather.
And then, when Aja was eighteen, his father died. And immediately, hisrelations conspired against him, led by his maternal uncle. And theylaid a plot, and seized him at night, and bound him when he was asleep:for they dared not attack him when he was awake, for fear of his courageand his prodigious strength. And they deliberated over him, as he laybound, what they should do with him: and some of them were for puttinghim to death, then and there. But the prime minister, who was in theplot, persuaded them to let him live: saying to himself: In this way Ishall make for myself a loophole of escape, in case he should everregain his throne.
Then in the early morning, his uncle and his other relations took himaway, and laid him bound on a swift camel. And mounting others, theyhurried him away into the desert, going at full speed for hours, tillthey reached its very heart. And there they set him down. And theyplaced beside him a little water in a small skin, and a little bag ofcorn. And his uncle said: Now, O nephew, we will leave thee, alone withthy shadow and thy life in the sand. And if thou canst save thyself, bygoing away to the western quarter, lo! it is open before thee. Butbeware of attempting to return home, towards the rising sun. For I willset guards to watch thy coming, and I will not spare thee a second time.
And then, he set his left arm free, and laid beside him a little knife.And they mounted their camels, and taking his, they flew away from himover the sand, like the shadow of a cloud driven by the western wind.
So when they were gone, Aja took the knife, and cut his bonds. And hestood up, and watched them going, till they became specks on the edgeof the desert, and vanished out of his sight.
II.
Then he looked round to the eight quarters of the world, and he lookedup into the sky. And he said to himself: There is my ancestor, aloneabove, and I am alone, below. And he put his two hands to his breast,and flung them out into the air. And he exclaimed: Bho! ye guardians ofthe world[4], ye are my witnesses. Thus do I fling away the past, andnow the whole wide world is mine, and ye are my protectors. And I haveescaped death by a miracle, and the craft of that old villain of a primeminister, whom I will one day punish as he deserves. And now it is asthough I knew, for the very first time in all my life, what it was to bealive. Ha! I live and breathe, and there before me is food and water.And now we will see, which is the stronger: Death in the form of thislonely desert, or the life that laughs at his menace as it dances in myveins. And little I care for the loss of my kingdom, now that my fatheris dead and gone. I throw it away like a blade of grass, and so far fromlamenting, I feel rather as if I had been born again. Ha! it is good tobe alive, even in this waste of sand. And he shouted aloud, and calledout to the sun above him: Come, old Grandfather, thou and I will traveltogether across the sand. And yet, no. Thou art too rapid and too fierceto be a safe companion, even for one of thy own race. So thou shalt gobefore me, as is due to thee, and I will follow after.
[4] The _Lokapalas_, or regents of the world, often thus appealed to, are eight: Kubera, Isha, Indra, Agni, Yama, Niruti, Waruna, and Wayu: and they ride on a horse, a bull, an elephant, a ram, a buffalo, a man, a "crocodile," and a stag.
And then, he lay down on the sand, covering his head with his uppergarment, and slept and waited all day long, till the sun was going down.And then he rose, and eat and drank a very little, and taking with himhis skin and corn, he walked on after the sun, which sank to his rest inthe western mountain. But Aja followed him all night long, with the moonfor his only companion. And as he went, he saw the bones of men andcamel
s, lying along the sand, and grinning at him as it were with whiteand silent laughter, as though to say: Anticipate thy fate: for but alittle further on, and thou shalt be what we are now. But he went onwith nimble feet, like one that hurries through the den of a sleepinghungry lion, till the sun rose at last behind him. And then again he laydown, and rested all day long, and started again at night. And so heproceeded for many days, till all his water and corn was gone. And as hethrew away the skin, he set his teeth, and said: No matter. I will reachthe end of this hideous sand, which like the dress of Draupadi[5], seemsto roll itself out as I go across it, though I should have to go walkingon long after I am dead.
[5] When she was lost in the gambling match, and Duhshasana tried to strip her, still as he pulled off one dress, another appeared below it, refusing to leave her naked.
And night after night he went on, growing every night a little weaker.And then at last there came a night when as he toiled along with heavysteps that flagged as it were with loaded feet, faint with hunger andburning thirst, he said to himself: I am nearly spent, and now the endis coming near, either of the sand, or me. And then the sun rose behindhim, and he looked up, and lo! it was reflected from the wall of a citybefore him, which resembled another sun of hope rising in the west tocheer him. And he rubbed his eyes, and looked again, saying to himself:Is it a delusion of the desert, to mock me as I perish, or is it reallya true city? And he said again: Ha! it is a real city. And his ebbingstrength came back to him with a flood of joy. And he stooped, and tookup a little sand, and turned, and threw it back, exclaiming: Out uponthee, abode of death![6] Now, then, I have beaten thee, and thy victimwill after all escape. And he hurried on towards the city, half afraidto take his eyes away from it for a single instant, lest it shoulddisappear.