Vikram and the Vampire

The sages sprang back, and the beast sprang forward. With a roar like thunder during Elephanta-time,[144 - When the moon is in a certain lunar mansion, at the conclusion of the wet season.] it flew at the nearest of the spectators, flung Vishnu Swami to the ground and clawed his four sons. Then, not even stopping to drink their blood, it hurried after the flying herd of wise men. Jostling and tumbling, stumbling and catching at one another’s long robes, they rushed in hottest haste towards the garden gate. But the beast having the muscles of an elephant as well as the bones of a tiger, made a few bounds of eighty or ninety feet each, easily distanced them, and took away all chance of escape. To be brief: as the monster was frightfully hungry after its long fast, and as the imprudent young men had furnished it with admirable implements of destruction, it did not cease its work till one hundred and twenty-one learned and highly distinguished Pandits and Gurus lay upon the ground chawed, clawed, sucked-dry, and in most cases stone-dead. Amongst them, I need hardly say, were the sage Vishnu Swami and his four sons.

Having told this story the Vampire hung silent for a time. Presently he resumed —

‘Now, heed my words, Raja Vikram! I am about to ask thee, Which of all those learned men was the most finished fool? The answer is easily found, yet it must be distasteful to thee. Therefore mortify thy vanity, as soon as possible, or I shall be talking, and thou wilt be walking through this livelong night, to scanty purpose. Remember! science without understanding is of little use; indeed, understanding is superior to science, and those devoid of understanding perish as did the persons who revivified the tiger. Before this, I warned thee to beware of thyself, and of thine own conceit. Here, then, is an opportunity for self-discipline – which of all those learned men was the greatest fool?’

The warrior king mistook the kind of mortification imposed upon him, and pondered over the uncomfortable nature of the reply – in the presence of his son.

Again the Baital taunted him.

‘The greatest fool of all,’ at last said Vikram, in slow and by no means willing accents, ‘was the father. Is it not said, “There is no fool like an old fool?”’

‘Gramercy!’ cried the Vampire, bursting out into a discordant laugh, ‘I now return to my tree. By this head! I never before heard a father so readily condemn a father.’ With these words he disappeared, slipping out of the bundle.

The Raja scolded his son a little for want of obedience, and said that he had always thought more highly of his acuteness – never could have believed that he would have been taken in by so shallow a trick. Dharma Dhwaj answered not a word to this, but promised to be wiser another time.

Then they returned to the tree, and did what they had so often done before.

And, as before, the Baital held his tongue for a time. Presently he began as follows.

THE VAMPIRE’S EIGHTH STORY.

OF THE USE AND MISUSE OF MAGIC PILLS

The lady Chandraprabha, daughter of the Raja Subichar, was a particularly beautiful girl, and marriageable withal. One day as Vasanta, the Spring, began to assert its reign over the world, animate and inanimate, she went accompanied by her young friends and companions to stroll about her father’s pleasure-garden.

The fair troop wandered through sombre groves, where the dark tamala-tree entwined its branches with the pale green foliage of the nim, and the pippal’s domes of quivering leaves contrasted with the columnar aisles of the banyan fig. They admired the old monarchs of the forest, bearded to the waist with hangings of moss, the flowing creepers delicately climbing from the lower branches to the topmost shoots, and the cordage of llianas stretching from trunk to trunk like bridges for the monkeys to pass over. Then they issued into a clear space dotted with asokas bearing rich crimson flowers, cliterias of azure blue, madhavis exhibiting petals virgin white as the snows on Himalaya, and jasmines raining showers of perfumed blossoms upon the grateful earth. They could not sufficiently praise the tall and graceful stem of the arrowy areca, contrasting with the solid pyramid of the cypress, and the more masculine stature of the palm. Now they lingered in the trellised walks closely covered over with vines and creepers; then they stopped to gather the golden bloom weighing down the mango boughs, and to smell the highly-scented flowers that hung from the green fretwork of the chambela.

It was spring, I have said. The air was still except when broken by the hum of the large black bramra bee, as he plied his task amidst the red and orange flowers of the dak, and by the gushings of many waters that made music as they coursed down their stuccoed channels between borders of many coloured poppies and beds of various flowers. From time to time the dulcet note of the kokila bird, and the hoarse plaint of the turtle-dove deep hid in her leafy bower, attracted every ear and thrilled every heart. The south wind – ‘breeze of the south,[145 - In Hindostan, it is the prevailing wind of the hot weather.] the friend of love and spring’ – blew with a voluptuous warmth, for rain clouds canopied the earth, and the breath of the narcissus, the rose, and the citron, teemed with a languid fragrance.

The charms of the season affected all the damsels. They amused themselves in their privacy with pelting blossoms at one another, running races down the smooth broad alleys, mounting the silken swings that hung between the orange trees, embracing one another, and at times trying to push the butt of the party into the fish-pond. Perhaps the liveliest of all was the lady Chandraprabha, who on account of her rank could pelt and push all the others, without fear of being pelted and pushed in return.

It so happened, before the attendants had had time to secure privacy for the princess and her women, that Manaswi, a very handsome youth, a Brahman’s son, had wandered without malicious intention into the garden. Fatigued with walking, and finding a cool shady place beneath a tree, he had lain down there, and had gone to sleep, and had not been observed by any of the king’s people. He was still sleeping when the princess and her companions were playing together.

Presently Chandraprabha, weary of sport, left her friends, and singing a lively air, tripped up the stairs leading to the summer-house. Aroused by the sound of her advancing footsteps, Manaswi sat up; and the princess, seeing a strange man, started. But their eyes had met, and both were subdued by love – love vulgarly called ‘love at first sight.’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed the warrior king, testily, ‘I can never believe in that freak of Kama Deva.’ He spoke feelingly, for the thing had happened to himself more than once, and on no occasion had it turned out well.

‘But there is such a thing, O Raja, as love at first sight,’ objected the Baital, speaking dogmatically.

‘Then perhaps thou canst account for it, dead one,’ growled the monarch, surlily.

‘I have no reason to do so, O Vikram,’ retorted the Vampire, ‘when you men have already done it. Listen, then, to the words of the wise. In the olden time, one of your great philosophers invented a fluid pervading all matter, strongly self-repulsive like the steam of a brass pot, and widely spreading like the breath of scandal. The repulsiveness, however, according to that wise man, is greatly modified by its second property, namely, an energetic attraction or adhesion to all material bodies. Thus every substance contains a part, more or less, of this fluid, pervading it throughout, and strongly bound to each component atom. He called it “Ambericity,” for the best of reasons, as it has no connection with amber, and he described it as an imponderable, which, meaning that it could not be weighed, gives a very accurate and satisfactory idea of its nature.

‘Now, said that philosopher, whenever two bodies containing that unweighable substance in unequal proportions happen to meet, a current of imponderable passes from one to the other, producing a kind of attraction, and tending to adhere. The operation takes place instantaneously when the force is strong and much condensed. Thus the vulgar, who call things after their effects and not from their causes, term the action of this imponderable love at first sight; the wise define it to be a phenomenon of ambericity. As regards my own opinion about the matter, I have long ago told it to you, O Vikram! Silliness – ’

‘Either hold your tongue, fellow, or go on with your story,’ cried the Raja, wearied out by so many words that had no manner of sense.

Well! the effect of the first glance was that Manaswi, the Brahman’s son, fell back in a swoon and remained senseless upon the ground where he had been sitting; and the Raja’s daughter began to tremble upon her feet, and presently dropped unconscious upon the floor of the summer-house. Shortly after this she was found by her companions and attendants, who, quickly taking her up in their arms and supporting her into a litter, conveyed her home.

Manaswi, the Brahman’s son, was so completely overcome, that he lay there dead to everything. Just then the learned, deeply read, and purblind Pandits Muldev and Shashi by name, strayed into the garden, and stumbled upon the body.

‘Friend,’ said Muldev, ‘how came this youth thus to fall senseless on the ground?’

‘Man,’ replied Shashi, ‘doubtless some damsel has shot forth the arrows of her glances from the bow of her eyebrows, and thence he has become insensible!’

‘We must lift him up then,’ said Muldev the benevolent.

‘What need is there to raise him?’ asked Shashi the misanthrope by way of reply.

Muldev, however, would not listen to these words. He ran to the pond hard by, soaked the end of his waistcloth in water, sprinkled it over the young Brahman, raised him from the ground, and placed him sitting against the wall. And perceiving, when he came to himself, that his sickness was rather of the soul than the body, the old men asked him how he came to be in that plight.

‘We should tell our griefs,’ answered Manaswi, ‘only to those who will relieve us! What is the use of communicating them to those who, when they have heard, cannot help us? What is to be gained by the empty pity or by the useless condolence of men in general?’

The Pandits, however, by friendly looks and words, presently persuaded him to break silence, when he said, ‘A certain princess entered this summer-house, and from the sight of her I have fallen into this state. If I can obtain her, I shall live; if not, I must die.’

‘Come with me, young man!’ said Muldev the benevolent; ‘I will use every endeavour to obtain her, and if I do not succeed I will make thee wealthy and independent of the world.’

Manaswi rejoined: ‘The Deity in his beneficence has created many jewels in this world, but the pearl, woman, is chiefest of all; and for her sake only does man desire wealth. What are riches to one who has abandoned his wife? What are they who do not possess beautiful wives? they are but beings inferior to the beasts! wealth is the fruit of virtue; ease, of wealth; a wife, of ease. And where no wife is, how can there be happiness?’ And the enamoured youth rambled on in this way, curious to us, Raja Vikram, but perhaps natural enough in a Brahman’s son suffering under that endemic malady – determination to marry.

‘Whatever thou mayest desire,’ said Muldev, ‘shall by the blessing of heaven be given to thee.’

Manaswi implored him, saying most pathetically, ‘O Pandit, bestow then that damsel upon me!’

Muldev promised to do so, and having comforted the youth, led him to his own house. Then he welcomed him politely, seated him upon the carpet, and left him for a few minutes, promising him to return. When he reappeared, he held in his hand two little balls or pills, and showing them to Manaswi, he explained their virtues as follows:

‘There is in our house an hereditary secret, by means of which I try to promote the weal of humanity. But in all cases my success depends mainly upon the purity and the heartwholeness of those that seek my aid. If thou place this in thy mouth, thou shalt be changed into a damsel twelve years old, and when thou withdrawest it again, thou shalt again recover thine original form. Beware, however, that thou use the power for none but a good purpose; otherwise some great calamity will befall thee. Therefore, take counsel of thyself before undertaking this trial!’

What lover, O warrior king Vikram, would have hesitated, under such circumstances, to assure the Pandit that he was the most innocent, earnest, and well-intentioned being in the Three Worlds?

The Brahman’s son, at least, lost no time in so doing. Hence the simple-minded philosopher put one of the pills into the young man’s mouth, warning him on no account to swallow it, and took the other into his own mouth. Upon which Manaswi became a sprightly young maid, and Muldev was changed to a reverend and decrepid senior, not less than eighty years old.

Thus transformed the twain walked up to the palace of the Raja Subichar, and stood for a while to admire the gate. Then passing through seven courts, beautiful as the Paradise of Indra, they entered, unannounced, as became the priestly dignity, a hall where, surrounded by his courtiers, sat the ruler. The latter seeing the holy Brahman under his roof, rose up, made the customary humble salutation, and taking their right hands, led what appeared to be the father and daughter to appropriate seats. Upon which Muldev, having recited a verse, bestowed upon the Raja a blessing whose beauty has been diffused over all creation.

‘May that Deity[146 - Vishnu, as a dwarf, sank down into and secured in the lower regions the Raja Bali, who by his piety and prayerfulness was subverting the reign of the lesser gods; as Ramachandra he built a bridge between Lanka (Ceylon) and the main land; and as Krishna he defended, by holding up a hill as an umbrella for them, his friends the shepherds and shepherdesses from the thunders of Indra, whose worship they had neglected.] who as a mannikin deceived the great king Bali; who as a hero, with a monkey-host, bridged the Salt Sea; who as a shepherd lifted up the mountain Gobarddhan in the palm of his hand, and by it saved the cowherds and cowherdesses from the thunders of heaven – may that Deity be thy protector!’

Having heard and marvelled at this display of eloquence, the Raja inquired, ‘Whence hath your holiness come?’

‘My country,’ replied Muldev, ‘is on the northern side of the great mother Ganges, and there too my dwelling is. I travelled to a distant land, and having found in this maiden a worthy wife for my son, I straightway returned homewards. Meanwhile a famine had laid waste our village, and my wife and my son have fled, I know not where. Encumbered with this damsel, how can I wander about seeking them? Hearing the name of a pious and generous ruler, I said to myself, “I will leave her under his charge until my return.” Be pleased to take great care of her.’

For a minute the Raja sat thoughtful and silent. He was highly pleased with the Brahman’s perfect compliment. But he could not hide from himself that he was placed between two difficulties: one, the charge of a beautiful young girl, with pouting lips, soft speech, and roguish eyes; the other, a priestly curse upon himself and his kingdom. He thought, however, refusal the more dangerous: so he raised his face and exclaimed, ‘O produce of Brahma’s head,[147 - The priestly caste sprang, as has been said, from the noblest part of the Demiurgus; the three others from lower members.] I will do what your highness has desired of me.’

Upon which the Brahman, after delivering a benediction of adieu almost as beautiful and spirit-stirring as that with which he had presented himself, took the betel[148 - A chew of betel leaf and spices is offered by the master of the house when dismissing a visitor.] and went his ways.

Then the Raja sent for his daughter Chandraprabha and said to her, ‘This is the affianced bride of a young Brahman, and she has been trusted to my protection for a time by her father-in-law. Take her therefore into the inner rooms, treat her with the utmost regard, and never allow her to be separated from thee, day or night, asleep or awake, eating or drinking, at home or abroad.’

Chandraprabha took the hand of Sita – as Manaswi had pleased to call himself – and led the way to her own apartment. Once the seat of joy and pleasure, the rooms now wore a desolate and melancholy look. The windows were darkened, the attendants moved noiselessly over the carpets, as if their footsteps would cause headache, and there was a faint scent of some drug much used in cases of deliquium. The apartments were handsome, but the only ornament in the room where they sat was a large bunch of withered flowers in an arched recess, and these, though possibly interesting to some one, were not likely to find favour as a decoration in the eyes of everybody.

The Raja’s daughter paid the greatest attention and talked with unusual vivacity to the Brahman’s daughter-in-law, either because she had roguish eyes, or from some presentiment of what was to occur, whichever you please, Raja Vikram, and it is no matter which. Still, Sita could not help perceiving that there was a shade of sorrow upon the forehead of her fair new friend, and so when they retired to rest she asked the cause of it.