garden, a tree whose deep red blossoms spread their
fragrance far around. And she said that one who inhaled
this perfume would remember in her heart the long, long
nd added almost
.
? Even if we were not Nāla and
e
oughts, profound
and strange.
But she added — and smiled gently, probably
guessing what was in my mind: “Oh! I know, I really
ought not to have such thoughts; our old family brahmin
became quite angry on one occasion when I hinted at
something of the kind:— I was to pray to Krishna and
leave the thinking to the brahmins! So, since I am not to
think but am only allowed to believe, I will believe that
we were, really and truly, Nāla and Damayantī.”
And, raising her hands in prayer to the Asoka
before us, in all its glory of shimmering blossom and
flimmering leaf, she spoke to it in the words which Dama‐
yantī, wandering heart‐broken in the woods, used to the
past times of former lives long since vanished.
“But only saints and holy ones are able to inhale
this perfume here on earth,” she said, a
roguishly, “and we two shall, I fear, hardly become such
But what does that matter
Damayantī, I am sure we loved each other quite as much
— whatever our names may have been. And perhaps,
after all, Love and Faith are the only realities, merely
changing their names and forms. They are the melodies
and we the instruments upon which they are played. Th
vīnā is shattered and another is strung, but the melody
remains the same. It can sound, it is true, fuller and nobler
on one instrument than on another, just as my new vīnā
sounds far more beautiful than my old one. However,
whatever is the case with us two, we are both splendid
instruments for the gods to play upon — from which to
draw the sweetest of all music.”
I pressed her silently to my breast — deeply
moved as well as astonished at these th
45
Asoka. But on her lips the flexible verses of the poet
seemed to grow without effort and to blossom ever more
richly, like a young shoot transplanted into hallowed soil:
“Oh Sorrowless One,
Of this heart‐stricken girl, hear the anguished cry!
You, so well‐named ‘Heartsease’,
Bring the peace of your peace to me.
Your blossoms, all‐seeing, are the eyes of gods;
Your whispering leaves their lips,
Tell me! Oh tell me, where my heart’s belovèd
wanders.
Where is it my cherished Nāla waits?”
Then she looked on me with love‐filled eyes, in
whose tears the moonlight was clearly mirrored, and she
spoke with lips that were drawn and quivering: “When
you are far away, and you recall this scene of our bliss,
imagine to yourself that I stand here and speak thus to this
noble tree. Only then I shall not say Nāla but Kāmanīta.”
I locked her in my arms, and our lips met in a kiss
full of unutterable feeling.
Suddenly there was a rustling in the summit of the
tree above us. A large, luminous red flower floated down‐
ward and settled on our tear‐bedewed cheeks. Vāsitthī took
it in her hand, smiled, blessed it with a kiss, and gave it to
me. I hid it in my breast.
Several flowers had fallen to the ground in the
avenue of trees. Medinī, who sat beside Somadatta on a
bench not far from us, sprang to her feet and, holding up
several yellow Asoka blossoms, came towards us calling
out: “Look, sister! The flowers are beginning to fall already.
Soon there will be enough of them for your bath.”
“You don’t mean those yellow things!” exclaimed
my mischievous friend. “Vāsitthī may not, on any account,
put them into her bath‐water, that is, if her flower‐like
body is to blossom in harmony with her love; I assure you,
46
only such scarlet flowers as that one which Kāmanīta has
just concealed at his heart should e used. For it is written
in the Golden Book of Love: ‘It is alled Saffron, Yellow
Affection, when it attracts attention but then later fades
away; it is called Scarlet how
it does not fade
but later becomes only too apparent.’”
At the same
ed in their
y, confidential
Vāsitthī, however, answered gravely, though with
d:
colour of
e
ck — blue‐black as Shiva’s
roat became when the god swallowed the poison which
ng beings. And so
must always be. True love must be able to withstand the
at
r
b
c
ever, when
time he and Medinī laugh
way.
merr
her sweet smile, and gently but firmly pressed my han
“You are mistaken, Somadatta! My love has the
no flower. For I have heard it said that the colour of th
truest love is not red but bla
th
would otherwise have destroyed all livi
it
poison of life, and must be willing to taste the bitterest, in
order that the loved one may be spared. And from th
bitterest it will assuredly prefer to choose its colour, rathe
than from any pleasures, however dazzling.”
In such profound fashion spoke my belovèd Vāsitthī,
that night under the Sorrowless trees.
47