Note 246 — KĀDAMBARĪ. (continued 2)

‘“‘There I beheld Puṇḍarīka lying on a couch made on a slab of moonstone wet with showers of cool spray, close to the lake; it was made of lotus-fibres like a garland of tender flowers from all lilies, and seemed to be formed wholly of the points of Love’s arrows. Puṇḍarīka seemed from his great stillness to be listening for the sound of my step. He seemed to have gained a moment’s happiness in sleep, as if Love’s pain had been quenched by inward wrath; he seemed engaged in a yoga penance of holding his breath, as an atonement for his breach of ascetic duty; he seemed to murmur, with bright yet trembling lip: “By thy deed am I come to this pass.” He seemed pierced by the moonbeams which, under the guise of his bright finger-nails placed on a heart throbbing with Love’s fire, fell on his back as he lay averted in hatred of the moon. (325) He bore a mark on his brow of a line of sandal, which, by its being pale from dryness, was like a digit of Love’s waning moon portending his own destruction. Life seemed to leave him in anger, saying: “Fool, another is dearer to thee than I!” His eyes were not wholly closed; their pupils were slightly turned to look; they were red with ceaseless weeping; they seemed to drop blood, since by failure of breath his tears were exhausted; and they were partly curved in pain at Love’s darts. He now experienced the pain of unconsciousness, as if together with the torment of love he were also yielding life itself; he seemed to meditate a new version of Love’s mystery, and to practise an unwonted retention of breath. His life seemed to be carried off as a prize246 by Love, who had in kindness arranged my coming. On his brow was a sandal tripuṇḍraka mark; he wore a sacrificial thread of juicy lotus-fibre; his dress clung to his shoulder beautiful as the leaf that ensheathes a plantain; his rosary had only the thickness of a single row;247 the ashes on his brow were of abundant white camphor-powder; he was fair with the string of lotus-fibre, bound on his arm as an amulet; he seemed to wear the garb of Love’s vow, as if completing a charm for my coming. With his eye he tenderly uttered the reproach: “Hard-hearted! I was but followed by one glance, and never again received thy favour.” (326) His lips were slightly open, so that his form gleamed white in the rays of his teeth, which came forth as if they were moonbeams that had entered him to take away his life; with his left hand placed on a heart breaking with the pain of love, he seemed to say: “Be kind, depart not with my life, thou that art dear as life!” and so to hold me firmly in his heart; his right hand, which from the uneven rays of his nails jutting forth seemed to drop sandal, was raised as if to ward off the moonlight; near him stood his pitcher, the friend of his penance, with neck upright, as if it gazed at the path by which his life was just rising; the garland of lotus-fibres which adorned his neck bound him as if with a rope of moonbeams to lead him to another world; and when, at the sight of me, Kapiñjala, with a cry of “Help, help!” raised his hands, and crying aloud with redoubled tears, fell on his neck, at that very moment I, wicked and ill-fated as I was, beheld that noble youth yield up his life. The darkness of a swoon came upon me, and I descended into hell; nor knew I anything of whither I then went, or what I did or said. Neither knew I why my life did not at that moment leave me; (327) whether from the utter hardness of my stupefied heart, or from the callousness to bear thousands of troubles of my wretched body, or from being fated to endure a long grief, or from being a vessel of evil earned in another birth, or from the skill of my cruel destiny in bestowing sorrow, or from the singular perversity of malign accursed love. Only this I know: that when at length in my misery I regained consciousness, I found myself writhing on the ground, tortured, as if I had fallen on a fire, by a grief too hard to bear. I could not believe aught so impossible as that he should die and I yet live, and rising with a bitter cry of “Alas, what is this—mother, father, friends?” I exclaimed: “Ah, my Lord, thou who upholdest my life, speak to me! Whither goest thou, pitilessly leaving me alone and protectorless? Ask Taralikā what I have suffered for thy sake. Hardly have I been able to pass the day, drawn out into a thousand ages. Be gracious! Utter but one word! Show tenderness to her that loves thee! Look but a little on me! Fulfil my longing! I am wretched! I am loyal! I am thine in heart! I am lordless! I am young! I am helpless! I am unhappy! I am bereft of other refuge! I am vanquished by Love! Why showest thou no pity? Say what I have done or left undone, what command I have neglected, or in what thing pleasing to thee I have not shown affection, that thou art wroth. (328) Fearest thou not the reproach of men in that thou goest, deserting me, thy handmaid, without cause? Yet why think of me, perverse and wicked, and skilled to deceive by false shows of love! Alas, I yet live! Alas, I am accursed and undone! For why? I have neither thee, nor honour, nor kinsfolk, nor heaven. Shame on me, a worker of evil deeds, for whose sake this fate hath befallen thee. There is none of so murderous a heart as I who went home, leaving one so peerless as thou. What to me were home, mother, father, kinsfolk, followers? Alas, to what refuge shall I flee? Fate, show pity to me! I entreat thee. Lady of destiny, give me a boon of mercy! Show compassion! Protect a lordless lady! Ye woodland goddesses, be kind! Give back his life! Help, Earth, that bringest favours to all! Night, showest thou no mercy? Father Kailāsa, thy protection I implore. Show thy wonted pity!” Such were my laments, so far as I remember, and I murmured incoherently as one held by a demon, or possessed or mad, or struck down by an evil spirit. In the tears that fell in torrents upon me I was turned to water, I melted away, I took upon me a shape of water; my laments, followed by the sharp rays of my teeth, fell as if with showers of tears; (329) my hair, with its flowers ever falling, seemed to shed teardrops, and my very ornaments by the tears of pure gemlight that sprang from them seemed to raise their lament. I longed for my own death as for his life; I yearned to enter his heart with my whole soul, dead though he were; with my hand I touched his cheeks, and his brow with the roots of his hair, white with dry sandal, and his shoulders with the lotus-fibres on them, and his heart covered with lotus-leaves and flecks of sandal-juice. With the tender reproach, “Thou art cruel, Puṇḍarīka! Thou carest nought that I am thus wretched!” I again sought to win him back. I again embraced him, I again clasped his neck, and wept aloud. Then I rebuked that string of pearls, saying: “Ah, wicked one, couldst not even thou have preserved his life till my coming?” Then again I fell at Kapiñjala’s feet with the prayer, “Be kind, my lord; restore him to life!” and again, clinging to Taralikā’s neck, I wept. Even now, when I think of it, I know not how these piteous, tender words came forth from my ill-fated heart—words all unthought, unlearnt, untaught, unseen before; nor whence these utterances arose; nor whence these heart-rending cries of despair. My whole being was changed. (330) For there rose a deluge wave of inward tears, the springs of weeping were set loose, the buds of wailing came forth, the peaks of sorrow grew lofty and a long line of madness was begun.’ And so, as she thus told her own tale, she seemed again to taste the bitterness of that former plight, so cruel, and so hardly endured, and a swoon bereft her of sense. In the force of her swoon she fell on the rock, and Candrāpīḍa hastily stretched out his hand, like her servant, and supported her, full of sorrow. At length he brought her back to consciousness by fanning her with the edge of her own bark garment, wet with tears. Filled with pity, and with his cheeks bathed in tears, he said to her, as she came to life: ‘Lady, it is by my fault that thy grief has been brought back to its first freshness, and that thou hast come to this pass. Therefore no more of this tale. Let it be ended. Even I cannot bear to hear it. For the story even of past sorrow endured by a friend pains us as if we ourselves were living through it.248 Thou wilt not therefore surely place on the fire of grief that life so precious and so hardly preserved?’ (331) Thus addressed, with a long, hot sigh and eyes dissolved in tears, she despairingly replied: ‘Prince, even in that dreadful night my hated life did not desert me;249 it is not likely that it will leave me now. Even blessed Death turns away his eyes from one so ill-fated and wicked. Whence could one so hard-hearted feel grief? all this can be but feigned in a nature so vile. But be that as it may, that shameless heart has made me chief among the shameless. For to one so adamantine as to have seen love in all his power, and yet to have lived through this, what can mere speaking of it matter?