without a crease. Nevertheless, although as the result of
ady grown quite slim, your body
not
nut. There on the wall, the wreath of
nel
d
ya Mountains might
ell b
steri‐
.
.
your fasting you have alre
is
yet entirely devoid of weight, as the observant may
see from this grass mat on which you have obviously
spent the night in prayer and meditation. But I find that,
for so holy a tenant, this room looks somewhat too
worldly: here on your dressing‐table, the jar of skin cream
— untouched, it is true; the box of sandal‐wood powder;
the carafe of scented water and the dish with bark of the
lemon tree and betel‐
yellow amaranths, and the vīnā, but... where is the pa
which usually hangs on that hook?”
In my embarrassment I was unable to frame any
answer to this question and he meanwhile discovered the
missing board, and drew it forth from under the bed.
“Why! Why! What wicked and crafty wizard,” he
cried, “has caused the fascinating picture of a maiden
playing ball to appear by magic on the board which I
myself hung quite empty on that hook? Plainly, they have
done this with evil intent, to assail the embryo ascetic an
tempt him at the very beginning of his career, and thus to
confuse both sense and thought in him. Or could it be that
this is the work of a god? For we know it is a fact that the
gods fear the omnipotence of great ascetics; and, begin‐
ning as you have done, the Vindha
w
egin to belch smoke at the fervency of your au
ties; indeed, owing to your accumulation of blessings, the
kingdom of heavenly beings might almost begin to totter
And now I also know which deity it is! Certainly it is he
whom we name the Invisible, the God with the Flower
Darts who bears a fish on his banner — Kāma, the god of
love, from whom you get your name, as I now remember
And, heavens, what do I see? But this is Vāsitthī, the
daughter of the rich goldsmith!”
As I thus, for the first time, heard the name of my
30
belovèd, my heart began to beat violently and my face
grew pale from agitation.
“I see, my dear friend,” this incorrigible jester went
on, “that the idea of the magic of Kāma has given you a
great fright and, truly, we shall be obliged to do something
in order to avert his anger. In such a case, however, I feel
that a woman’s counsel is not to be despised. I shall show
e of
ose
er
tiful red of a brilliant hue
nd in
t,
as
spair
as
med to him much too simple, and he informed
e th
in a
this picture to my belovèd Medinī, who was also on
th
at the dance and who is, furthermore, the foster‐sist
of the fair Vāsitthī.”
With that, he was about to go away, taking the
panel with him. Perceiving, however, what the rogue had
in mind I bade him wait, as the picture still lacked an
inscription. I mixed some beau
a
a few minutes had written, in the daintiest of scrip
a verse of four lines which related in simple language the
incident of the golden ball. The verse, when read back‐
wards, stated that the ball with which she had played w
my heart, which I myself sent back to her even at the risk
of her rejecting it. It was possible, however, to read the
verse perpendicularly through the lines and when so read,
from top to bottom, it voiced in saddest words the de
into which my separation from her had plunged me; if one
read it in the opposite direction then the reader learned
that nevertheless I dared to hope.
But of all that I had conveyed to her in such a
surreptitious fashion I said nothing, so that Somadatta w
by no means enchanted with this specimen of my poetic
skill. It see
m
at I ought certainly to mention how the god Kāma,
alarmed at my asceticism, had by his magic skill created
this picture with which to tempt me and that by it I had
been wholly vanquished — Somadatta, like so many
others, being highly impressed by his own wit.
After he had carried off the picture I felt myself
31
particularly exalted and energetic mood, for a step had
now been taken which, in its consequences, might lead to
le to
light meal, I took down the vīnā
om
ere
n
rew
g
ur lines written in
y
backwards, upwards and downwards. It gave
e a
dge,
he
‐
the longed‐for goal of all my happiness. I was now ab
eat and drink and, after a
fr
the wall and drew from its strings melodies that w
sometimes no more than tuneful sighs but now and the
g
exulting and joyous, while I repeated the heavenly
name of Vāsitthī in a thousand endearing accents.
Somadatta found me thus when, a few hours later,
he came in with the picture in his hand. “The ball‐playin
destroyer of your peace has also been moved to verse,”
said he, “but I cannot say that I am able to find much of
consequence in what she has written, although the hand‐
writing is unusually pretty.”
And it was indeed pretty. I saw before me — with
inexpressible joy — a second verse of fo
characters like sprays of tender blossoms swayed by sum‐
mer zephyrs, and looking as if they had been breathed
upon the picture. Somadatta had, of course, been unable
to find any meaning in them, for they referred solely to
that which he had not perceived, and showed me that m
fair one had correctly read my composition in every
direction —
m
good idea of her exalted education and knowle
no less than it did the revelation of her rare spirit in t
graciously humorous turn she gave to my fiery declara‐
tion, which she chose to accept as a piece of gallantry or
an effusion to which too much importance need not be
attached.
I now attempted, I confess, to read her verse in the
criss‐cross fashion which had been possible with mine, in
the hope that I might find in it a covert confession or other
secret message, perhaps even the invitation to a rendez
vous, but in vain. And I told myself at once that this was in
truth but a convincing proof of the highest and most
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