Vikram and the Vampire

‘I have not,’ cried Muldev, indignantly.

‘Therefore,’ drawled the malevolent, ‘you are answerable for all the mischief he does with it, and mischief assuredly he will do.’

‘He will not, by Brahma!’ exclaimed Muldev.

‘He will, by Vishnu!’ said Shashi, with an amiability produced by having completely upset his friend’s temper; ‘and if within the coming six months he does not disgrace himself, thou shalt have the whole of my book-case; but if he does, the philanthropic Muldev will use all his skill and ingenuity in procuring the daughter of Raja Subichar as a wife for his faithful friend Shashi.’

Having made this covenant, they both agreed not to speak of the matter till the autumn.

The appointed time drawing near, the Pandits began to make enquiries about the effect of the magic pills. Presently they found out that Sita, alias Manaswi, had one night mysteriously disappeared from the grand treasurer’s house, and had not been heard of since that time. This, together with certain other things that transpired presently, convinced Muldev, who had cooled down in six months, that his friend had won the wager. He prepared to make honourable payment by handing a pill to old Shashi, who at once became a stout, handsome young Brahman, some twenty years old. Next putting a pill into his own mouth, he resumed the shape and form under which he had first appeared before Raja Subichar; and, leaning upon his staff, he led the way to the palace.

The king, in great confusion, at once recognised the old priest, and guessed the errand upon which he and the youth were come. However, he saluted them, and offered them seats, and receiving their blessings, he began to make enquiries about their health and welfare. At last he mustered courage to ask the old Brahman where he had been living for so long a time.

‘Great king,’ replied the priest, ‘I went to seek after my son, and having found him, I bring him to your majesty. Give him his wife, and I will take them both home with me.’

Raja Subichar prevaricated not a little; but presently being hard pushed, he related everything that had happened.

‘What is this that you have done?’ cried Muldev, simulating excessive anger and astonishment. ‘Why have you given my son’s wife in marriage to another man? You have done what you wished, and now, therefore, receive my Shrap (curse)!’

The poor Raja, in great trepidation, said, ‘O Divinity! be not thus angry! I will do whatever you bid me.’

Said Muldev, ‘If through dread of my excommunication you will freely give whatever I demand of you, then marry your daughter, Chandraprabha, to this my son. On this condition I forgive you. To me, now a necklace of pearls and a venomous krishna (cobra capella); the most powerful enemy and the kindest friend; the most precious gem and a clod of earth; the softest bed and the hardest stone; a blade of grass and the loveliest woman – are precisely the same. All I desire is that in some holy place, repeating the name of God, I may soon end my days.’

Subichar, terrified by this additional show of sanctity, at once summoned an astrologer, and fixed upon the auspicious moment and lunar influence. He did not consult the princess, and had he done so she would not have resisted his wishes. Chandraprabha had heard of Sita’s escape from the treasurer’s house, and she had on the subject her own suspicions. Besides which she looked forward to a certain event, and she was by no means sure that her royal father approved of the Gandharba form of marriage – at least for his daughter. Thus the Brahman’s son receiving in due time the princess and her dowry, took leave of the king and returned to his own village.

Hardly, however, had Chandraprabha been married to Shashi the Pandit, when Manaswi went to him, and began to wrangle, and said, ‘Give me my wife!’ He had recovered from the effects of his fall, and having lost her he therefore loved her – very dearly.

But Shashi proved by reference to the astrologers, priests, and ten persons as witnesses, that he had duly wedded her, and brought her to his home; ‘therefore,’ said he, ‘she is my spouse.’

Manaswi swore by all holy things that he had been legally married to her, and that he was the father of her child that was about to be. ‘How then,’ continued he, ‘can she be thy spouse?’ He would have summoned Muldev as a witness, but that worthy, after remonstrating with him, disappeared. He called upon Chandraprabha to confirm his statement, but she put on an innocent face, and indignantly denied ever having seen the man.

Still, continued the Baital, many people believed Manaswi’s story, as it was marvellous and incredible. Even to the present day, there are many who decidedly think him legally married to the daughter of Raja Subichar.

‘Then they are pestilent fellows!’ cried the warrior king, Vikram, who hated nothing more than clandestine and runaway matches. ‘No one knew that the villain, Manaswi, was the father of her child; whereas, the Pandit Shashi married her lawfully, before witnesses, and with all the ceremonies.[152 - This would be the verdict of a Hindu jury.] She therefore remains his wife, and the child will perform the funeral obsequies for him, and offer water to the manes of his pitris (ancestors). At least, so say law and justice.’

‘Which justice is often unjust enough!’ cried the Vampire; ‘and ply thy legs, mighty Raja; let me see if thou canst reach the siras-tree before I do.’

* * * * *

‘The next story, O Raja Vikram, is remarkably interesting.’

THE VAMPIRE’S NINTH STORY.

SHOWING THAT A MAN’S WIFE BELONGS NOT TO HIS BODY BUT TO HIS HEAD

Far and wide through the lovely land overrun by the Arya from the Western Highlands spread the fame of Unmadini, the beautiful daughter of Haridas the Brahman. In the numberless odes, sonnets, and acrostics addressed to her by a hundred Pandits and poets her charms were sung with prodigious triteness. Her presence was compared to light shining in a dark house; her face to the full moon; her complexion to the yellow champaka flower; her curls to female snakes; her eyes to those of the deer; her eyebrows to bent bows; her teeth to strings of little opals; her feet to rubies and red gems,[153 - Because stained with the powder of Mhendi, or the Lawsonia inermis shrub.] and her gait to that of the wild goose. And none forgot to say that her voice affected the author like the song of the kokila bird, sounding from the shadowy brake, when the breeze blows coolly, or that the fairy beings of Indra’s heaven would have shrunk away abashed at her loveliness.

But, Raja Vikram! all the poets failed to win the fair Unmadini’s love. To praise the beauty of a beauty is not to praise her. Extol her wit and talents, which has the zest of novelty, then you may succeed. For the same reason, read inversely, the plainer and cleverer is the bosom you would fire, the more personal you must be upon the subject of its grace and loveliness. Flattery, you know, is ever the match which kindles the flame of love. True it is that some by roughness of demeanour and bluntness in speech, contrasting with those whom they call the ‘herd,’ have the art to succeed in the service of the bodyless god.[154 - Kansa’s son; so called because the god Shiva, when struck by his shafts, destroyed him with a fiery glance.] But even they must —

The young prince Dharma Dhwaj could not help laughing at the thought of how this must sound in his father’s ear. And the Raja hearing the ill-timed merriment, sternly ordered the Baital to cease his immoralities and to continue his story.

Thus the lovely Unmadini, conceiving an extreme contempt for poets and literati, one day told her father, who greatly loved her, that her husband must be a fine young man who never wrote verses. Withal she insisted strongly on mental qualities and science, being a person of moderate mind and an adorer of talent – when not perverted to poetry.

As you may imagine, Raja Vikram, all the beauty’s bosom friends, seeing her refuse so many good offers, confidently predicted that she would pass through the jungle and content herself with a bad stick, or that she would lead ring-tailed apes in Patala.

At length when some time had elapsed, four suitors appeared from four different countries, all of them claiming equal excellence in youth and beauty, strength and understanding. And after paying their respects to Haridas, and telling him their wishes, they were directed to come early on the next morning and to enter upon the first ordeal – an intellectual conversation.

This they did.

‘Foolish the man,’ quoth the young Mahasani, ‘that seeks permanence in this world – frail as the stem of the plantain-tree, transient as the ocean foam.

‘All that is high shall presently fall; all that is low must finally perish.

‘Unwillingly do the manes of the dead taste the tears shed by their kinsmen: then wail not, but perform the funeral obsequies with diligence.’

‘What ill-omened fellow is this?’ quoth the fair Unmadini, who was sitting behind her curtain; ‘besides, he has dared to quote poetry!’ There was little chance of success for that suitor.

‘She is called a good woman, and a woman of pure descent,’ quoth the second suitor, ‘who serves him to whom her father and mother have given her; and it is written in the scriptures that a woman who in the lifetime of her husband becoming a devotee, engages in fasting, and in austere devotion, shortens his days, and hereafter falls into the fire. For it is said —

‘A woman’s bliss is found, not in the smile
Of father, mother, friend, nor in herself;
Her husband is her only portion here,
Her heaven hereafter.’

The word ‘serve’ which might mean ‘obey,’ was peculiarly disagreeable to the fair one’s ears, and she did not admire the check so soon placed upon her devotion, or the decided language and manner of the youth. She therefore mentally resolved never again to see that person, whom she determined to be stupid as an elephant.

‘A mother,’ said Gunakar, the third candidate, ‘protects her son in babyhood, and a father when his offspring is growing up. But the man of warrior descent defends his brethren at all times. Such is the custom of the world, and such is my state. I dwell on the heads of the strong!’

Therefore those assembled together looked with great respect upon the man of valour.

Devasharma, the fourth suitor, contented himself with listening to the others, who fancied that he was overawed by their cleverness. And when it came to his turn he simply remarked, ‘Silence is better than speech.’ Being further pressed, he said, ‘A wise man will not proclaim his age, nor a deception practised upon himself, nor his riches, nor the loss of riches, nor family faults, nor incantations, nor conjugal love, nor medicinal prescriptions, nor religious duties, nor gifts, nor reproach, nor the infidelity of his wife.’

Thus ended the first trial. The master of the house dismissed the two former speakers, with many polite expressions and some trifling presents. Then having given betel to them, scented their garments with attar, and sprinkled rose water over their heads, he accompanied them to the door, showing much regret. The two latter speakers he begged to come on the next day.

Gunakar and Devasharma did not fail. When they entered the assembly-room and took the seats pointed out to them, the father said, ‘Be ye pleased to explain and make manifest the effects of your mental qualities. So shall I judge of them.’

‘I have made,’ said Gunakar, ‘a four-wheeled carriage, in which the power resides to carry you in a moment wherever you may purpose to go.’

‘I have such power over the angel of death,’ said Devasharma, ‘that I can at all times raise a corpse, and enable my friends to do the same.’

Now tell me by thy brains, O warrior King Vikram, which of these two youths was the fitter husband for the maid?

Either the Raja could not answer the question, or perhaps he would not, being determined to break the spell which had already kept him walking to and fro for so many hours. Then the Baital, who had paused to let his royal carrier commit himself, seeing that the attempt had failed, proceeded without making any further comment.

The beautiful Unmadini was brought out, but she hung down her head and made no reply. Yet she took care to move both her eyes in the direction of Devasharma. Whereupon Haridas, quoting the proverb that ‘pearls string with pearls,’ formally betrothed to him his daughter.

The soldier suitor twisted the ends of his mustachios into his eyes, which were red with wrath, and fumbled with his fingers about the hilt of his sword. But he was a man of noble birth, and presently his anger passed away.