“All this parrot-prate, I suppose, is only intended to vex me,” cried the warrior king, who always considered himself, and very naturally, a person of such consequence as ever to be uppermost in the thoughts and minds of others. “If thou must tell a tale, then tell one, Vampire! or else be silent, as I am sick to the death of thy psychics.”
“It is well, O warrior king,” resumed the Baital. After that Churaman the parrot had given the young Raja Ram a golden mine full of good advice about the management of daughters, he proceeded to describe Jayashri.
She was tall, stout, and well made, of lymphatic temperament, and yet strong passions. Her fine large eyes had heavy and rather full eyelids, which are to be avoided. Her hands were symmetrical without being small, and the palms were ever warm and damp. Though her lips were good, her mouth was somewhat underhung; and her voice was so deep, that at times it sounded like that of a man. Her hair was smooth as the kokila’s plume, and her complexion was that of the young jasmine; and these were the points at which most persons looked. Altogether, she was neither handsome nor ugly, which is an excellent thing in woman. Sita the goddess77 was lovely to excess; therefore she was carried away by a demon. Raja Bali was exceedingly generous, and he emptied his treasury. In this way, exaggeration, even of good, is exceedingly bad.
Yet must I confess, continued the parrot, that, as a rule, the beautiful woman is more virtuous than the ugly. The former is often tempted, but her vanity and conceit enable her to resist, by the self-promise that she shall be tempted again and again. On the other hand, the ugly woman must tempt instead of being tempted, and she must yield, because her vanity and conceit are gratified by yielding, not by resisting.
“Ho, there!” broke in the jay, contemptuously. “What woman cannot win the hearts of the silly things called men? Is it not said that a pig-faced female who dwells in Landanpur has a lover?”
I was about to remark, my king! said the parrot, somewhat nettled, if the aged virgin had not interrupted me, that as ugly women are more vicious than handsome women, so they are more successful. “We love the pretty, we adore the plain,” is a true saying amongst the worldly wise. And why do we adore the plain? Because they seem to think less of themselves than of us—a vital condition of adoration.
Jayashri made some conquests by the portion of good looks which she possessed, more by her impudence, and most by her father’s reputation for riches. She was truly shameless, and never allowed herself less than half a dozen admirers at the time. Her chief amusement was to appoint interviews with them successively, at intervals so short that she was obliged to hurry away one in order to make room for another. And when a lover happened to be jealous, or ventured in any way to criticise her arrangements, she replied at once by showing him the door. Answer unanswerable!
When Jayashri had reached the ripe age of thirteen, the son of a merchant, who was her father’s gossip and neighbour, returned home after a long sojourn in far lands, whither he had travelled in the search of wealth. The poor wretch, whose name, by the by, was Shridat (Gift of Fortune), had loved her in her childhood; and he came back, as men are apt to do after absence from familiar scenes, painfully full of affection for house and home and all belonging to it. From his cross, stingy old uncle to the snarling superannuated beast of a watchdog, he viewed all with eyes of love and melting heart. He could not see that his idol was greatly changed, and nowise for the better; that her nose was broader and more club-like, her eyelids fatter and thicker, her under lip more prominent, her voice harsher, and her manner coarser. He did not notice that she was an adept in judging of men’s dress, and that she looked with admiration upon all swordsmen, especially upon those who fought on horses and elephants. The charm of memory, the curious faculty of making past time present, caused all he viewed to be enchanting to him.
Having obtained her father’s permission, Shridat applied for betrothal to Jayashri, who, with peculiar boldness, had resolved that no suitor should come to her through her parent. And she, after leading him on by all the coquetries of which she was a mistress, refused to marry him, saying that she liked him as a friend, but would hate him as a husband.
You see, my King! there are three several states of feeling with which women regard their masters, and these are love, hate, and indifference. Of all, love is the weakest and the most transient, because the essentially unstable creatures naturally fall out of it as readily as they fall into it. Hate being a sister excitement will easily become, if man has wit enough to effect the change, love; and hate-love may perhaps last a little longer than love-love. Also, man has the occupation, the excitement, and the pleasure of bringing about the change. As regards the neutral state, that poet was not happy in his ideas who sang,
Whene’er indifference appears, or scorn,
Then, man, despair! then, hapless lover, mourn!
For a man versed in the Lila Shastra78 can soon turn a woman’s indifference into hate, which I have shown is as easily permuted to love. In which predicament it is the old thing over again, and it ends in the pure Asat79 or nonentity.
“Which of these two birds, the jay or the parrot, had dipped deeper into human nature, mighty King Vikram?” asked the demon in a wheedling tone of voice.
The trap
