Vikram and the Vampire

Then Chandraprabha related to her the sad tale: ‘One day in the spring season, as I was strolling in the garden along with my companions, I beheld a very handsome Brahman, and our eyes having met, he became unconscious, and I also was insensible. My companions seeing my condition, brought me home, and therefore I know neither his name nor his abode. His beautiful form is impressed upon my memory. I have now no desire to eat or to drink, and from this distress my colour has become pale and my body is thus emaciated.’ And the beautiful princess sighed a sigh that was musical and melancholy, and concluded by predicting for herself – as persons similarly placed often do – a sudden and untimely end about the beginning of the next month.

‘What wilt thou give me,’ asked the Brahman’s daughter-in-law demurely, ‘if I show thee thy beloved at this very moment?’

The Raja’s daughter answered, ‘I will ever be the lowest of thy slaves, standing before thee with joined hands.’

Upon which Sita removed the pill from her mouth, and instantly having become Manaswi, put it carefully away in a little bag hung round his neck. At this sight Chandraprabha felt abashed, and hung down her head in beautiful confusion. To describe —

‘I will have no descriptions, Vampire!’ cried the great Vikram, jerking the bag up and down as if he were sweating gold in it. ‘The fewer of thy descriptions the better for us all.’

Briefly (resumed the demon), Manaswi reflected upon the eight forms of marriage – viz. Bramhalagan, when a girl is given to a Brahman, or man of superior caste, without reward; Daiva, when she is presented as a gift or fee to the officiating priest at the close of a sacrifice; Arsha, when two cows are received by the girl’s father in exchange for the bride;149 Prajapatya, when the girl is given at the request of a Brahman, and the father says to his daughter and her betrothed, ‘Go, fulfil the duties of religion;’ Asura, when money is received by the father in exchange for the bride; Rakshasa, when she is captured in war, or when her bridegroom overcomes his rival; Paisacha, when the girl is taken away from her father’s house by craft; and eighthly, Gandharva-lagan, or the marriage that takes place by mutual consent.150

Manaswi preferred the latter, especially as by her rank and age the princess was entitled to call upon her father for the Lakshmi Swayambara wedding, in which she would have chosen her own husband. And thus it is that Rama, Arjuna, Krishna, Nala, and others, were proposed to by the princesses whom they married.

For five months after these nuptials, Manaswi never stirred out of the palace, but remained there by day a woman, and a man by night. The consequence was that he – I call him ‘he,’ for whether Manaswi or Sita, his mind ever remained masculine – presently found himself in a fair way to become a father.

Now, one would imagine that a change of sex every twenty-four hours would be variety enough to satisfy even a man. Manaswi, however, was not contented. He began to pine for more liberty, and to find fault with his wife for not taking him out into the world. And you might have supposed that a young person who, from love at first sight, had fallen senseless upon the steps of a summer-house, and who had devoted herself to a sudden and untimely end because she was separated from her lover, would have repressed her yawns and little irritable words even for a year after having converted him into a husband. But, no! Chandraprabha soon felt as tired of seeing Manaswi and nothing but Manaswi, as Manaswi was weary of seeing Chandraprabha and nothing but Chandraprabha. Often she had been on the point of proposing visits and out-of-door excursions. But when at last the idea was first suggested by her husband, she at once became an injured woman. She hinted how foolish it was for married people to imprison themselves and quarrel all day. When Manaswi remonstrated, saying that he wanted nothing better than to appear before the world with her as his wife, but that he really did not know what her father might do to him, she threw out a cutting sarcasm upon his effeminate appearance during the hours of light. She then told him of an unfortunate young woman in an old nursery tale who had unconsciously married a fiend that became a fine handsome man at night when no eye could see him, and utter ugliness by day when good looks show to advantage. And lastly, when inveighing against the changeableness, fickleness, and infidelity of mankind, she quoted the words of the poet —

Out upon change! it tires the heartAnd weighs the noble spirit down;A vain, vain world indeed thou artThat can such vile condition own;The veil hath fallen from my eyes,I cannot love where I despise…

You can easily, O King Vikram, continue for yourself and conclude this lecture, which I leave unfinished on account of its length.

Chandraprabha and Sita, who called each other the Zodiacal Twins and Laughter Light,151 and All-consenters, easily persuaded the old Raja that their health would be further improved by air, exercise, and distractions. Subichar, being delighted with the change that had taken place in a daughter whom he loved, and whom he had feared to lose, told them to do as they pleased. They began a new life, in which short trips and visits, baths and dances, music parties, drives in bullock chariots, and water excursions, succeeded one another.

It so happened that one day the Raja went with his whole family to a wedding feast in the house of his grand treasurer, where the latter’s son saw Manaswi in the beautiful shape of Sita. This was a third case of love at first sight, for the young man immediately said to a particular friend, ‘If I obtain that girl, I shall live; if not, I shall abandon life.’

In the meantime the king, having enjoyed the feast, came back to his palace with his whole family. The condition of the treasurer’s son, however, became very distressing; and through separation from his beloved, he gave up eating and drinking. The particular friend had kept the secret for some days, though burning to tell it. At length he found an excuse for himself in the sad state of his friend, and he immediately went and divulged all that he knew to the treasurer. After this he felt relieved.

The minister repaired to the court, and laid his case before the king, saying, ‘Great Raja! through the love of that Brahman’s daughter-in-law, my son’s state is very bad; he has given up eating and drinking; in fact he is consumed by the fire of separation. If now your majesty could show compassion, and bestow the girl upon him, his life would be saved. If not – ’

‘Fool!’ cried the Raja, who, hearing these words, had waxed very wroth; ‘it is not right for kings to do injustice. Listen! when a person puts any one in charge of a protector, how can the latter give away his trust without consulting the person that trusted him? And yet this is what you wish me to do.’

The treasurer knew that the Raja could not govern his realm without him, and he was well acquainted with his master’s character. He said to himself, ‘This will not last long;’ but he remained dumb, simulating hopelessness, and hanging down his head, whilst Subichar alternately scolded and coaxed, abused and flattered him, in order to open his lips. Then, with tears in his eyes, he muttered a request to take leave; and as he passed through the palace gates, he said aloud, with a resolute air, ‘It will cost me but ten days of fasting!’

The treasurer, having returned home, collected all his attendants, and went straightway to his son’s room. Seeing the youth still stretched upon his sleeping-mat, and very yellow for the want of food, he took his hand, and said in a whisper, meant to be audible, ‘Alas! poor son, I can do nothing but perish with thee.’

The servants, hearing this threat, slipped one by one out of the room, and each went to tell his friend that the Grand Treasurer had resolved to live no longer. After which, they went back to the house to see if their master intended to keep his word, and curious to know, if he did intend to die, how, where, and when it was to be. And they were not disappointed: I do not mean that they wished their lord to die, as he was a good master to them, but still there was an excitement in the thing —

(Raja Vikram could not refrain from showing his anger at the insult thus cast by the Baital upon human nature; the wretch, however, pretending not to notice it, went on without interrupting himself.)

– which somehow or other pleased them.

When the treasurer had spent three days without touching bread or water, all the cabinet council met and determined to retire from business unless the Raja yielded to their solicitations. The treasurer was their working man. ‘Besides which,’ said the cabinet council, ‘if a certain person gets into the habit of refusing us, what is to be the end of it, and what is the use of being cabinet councillors any longer?’

Early on the next morning, the ministers went in a body before the Raja, and humbly represented that ‘the treasurer’s son is at the point of death, the effect of a full heart and an empty stomach. Should he die, the father, who has not eaten or drunk during the last three days’ (the Raja trembled to hear the intelligence, though he knew it), ‘his father, we say, cannot be saved. If the father dies the affairs of the kingdom come to ruin, – is he not the grand treasurer? It is already said that half the accounts have been gnawed by white ants, and that some pernicious substance in the ink has eaten jagged holes through the paper, so that the other half of the accounts is illegible. It were best, sire, that you agree to what we represent.’

The white ants and corrosive ink were too strong for the Raja’s determination. Still, wishing to save appearances, he replied, with much firmness, that he knew the value of the treasurer and his son, that he would do much to save them, but that he had passed his royal word, and had undertaken a trust. That he would rather die a dozen deaths than break his promise, or not discharge his duty faithfully. That man’s condition in this world is to depart from it, none remaining in it; that one comes and that one goes, none knowing when or where; but that eternity is eternity for happiness or misery. And much of the same nature, not very novel, and not perhaps quite to the purpose, but edifying to those who knew what lay behind the speaker’s words.

The ministers did not know their lord’s character so well as the grand treasurer, and they were more impressed by his firm demeanour and the number of his words than he wished them to be. After allowing his speech to settle in their minds, he did away with a great part of its effect by declaring that such were the sentiments and the principles – when a man talks of his principles, O Vikram! ask thyself the reason why – instilled into his youthful mind by the most honourable of fathers and the most virtuous of mothers. At the same time that he was by no means obstinate or proof against conviction. In token whereof he graciously permitted the councillors to convince him that it was his royal duty to break his word and betray his trust, and to give away another man’s wife.

Pray do not lose your temper, O warrior king! Subichar, although a Raja, was a weak man; and you know, or you ought to know, that the wicked may be wise in their generation, but the weak never can.

Well, the ministers hearing their lord’s last words, took courage, and proceeded to work upon his mind by the figure of speech popularly called ‘rigmarole.’ They said: ‘Great king! that old Brahman has been gone many days, and has not returned; he is probably dead and burnt. It is therefore right that by giving to the grand treasurer’s son his daughter-in-law, who is only affianced, not fairly married, you should establish your government firmly. And even if he should return, bestow villages and wealth upon him; and if he be not then content, provide another and a more beautiful wife for his son, and dismiss him. A person should be sacrificed for the sake of a family, a family for a city, a city for a country, and a country for a king!’

Subichar, having heard them, dismissed them with the remark that as so much was to be said on both sides, he must employ the night in thinking over the matter, and that he would on the next day favour them with his decision. The cabinet councillors knew by this that he meant that he would go and consult his wives. They retired contented, convinced that every voice would be in favour of a wedding, and that the young girl, with so good an offer, would not sacrifice the present to the future.

That evening the treasurer and his son supped together.

The first words uttered by Raja Subichar, when he entered his daughter’s apartment, was an order addressed to Sita: ‘Go thou at once to the house of my treasurer’s son.’

Now, as Chandraprabha and Manaswi were generally scolding each other, Chandraprabha and Sita were hardly on speaking terms. When they heard the Raja’s order for their separation they were —

– ‘Delighted?’ cried Dharma Dhwaj, who for some reason took the greatest interest in the narrative.

‘Overwhelmed with grief, thou most guileless Yuva Raja (young prince)!’ ejaculated the Vampire.

Raja Vikram reproved his son for talking about things of which he knew nothing, and the Baital resumed.

They turned pale and wept, and they wrung their hands, and they begged and argued and refused obedience. In fact they did everything to make the king revoke his order.

‘The virtue of a woman,’ quoth Sita, ‘is destroyed through too much beauty; the religion of a Brahman is impaired by serving kings; a cow is spoiled by distant pasturage, wealth is lost by committing injustice, and prosperity departs from the house where promises are not kept.’

The Raja highly applauded the sentiment, but was firm as a rock upon the subject of Sita marrying the treasurer’s son.

Chandraprabha observed that her royal father, usually so conscientious, must now be acting from interested motives, and that when selfishness sways a man, right becomes left and left becomes right, as in the reflection of a mirror.

Subichar approved of the comparison; he was not quite so resolved, but he showed no symptoms of changing his mind.

Then the Brahman’s daughter-in-law, with the view of gaining time – a famous stratagem amongst feminines – said to the Raja: ‘Great king, if you are determined upon giving me to the grand treasurer’s son, exact from him the promise that he will do what I bid him. Only on this condition will I ever enter his house!’

‘Speak, then,’ asked the king; ‘what will he have to do?’

She replied, ‘I am of the Brahman or priestly caste, he is the son of a Kshatriya or warrior: the law directs that before we twain can wed, he should perform Yatra (pilgrimage) to all the holy places.’

‘Thou has spoken Veda-truth, girl,’ answered the Raja, not sorry to have found so good a pretext for temporising, and at the same time to preserve his character for firmness, resolution, determination.

That night Manaswi and Chandraprabha, instead of scolding each other, congratulated themselves upon having escaped an imminent danger – which they did not escape.

In the morning, Subichar sent for his ministers, including his grand treasurer and his love-sick son, and told them how well and wisely the Brahman’s daughter-in-law had spoken upon the subject of the marriage. All of them approved of the condition; but the young man ventured to suggest, that while he was a-pilgrimaging the maiden should reside under his father’s roof. As he and his father showed a disposition to continue their fasts in case of the small favour not being granted, the Raja, though very loath to separate his beloved daughter and her dear friend, was driven to do it. And Sita was carried off, weeping bitterly, to the treasurer’s palace. That dignitary solemnly committed her to the charge of his third and youngest wife, the lady Subhagya-Sundari, who was about her own age, and said, ‘You must both live together, without any kind of wrangling or contention, and do not go into other people’s houses.’ And the grand treasurer’s son went off to perform his pilgrimages.

It is no less sad than true, Raja Vikram, that in less than six days the disconsolate Sita waxed weary of being Sita, took the ball out of her mouth, and became Manaswi. Alas for the infidelity of mankind! But it is gratifying to reflect that he met with the punishment with which the Pandit Muldev had threatened him. One night the magic pill slipped down his throat. When morning dawned, being unable to change himself into Sita, Manaswi was obliged to escape through a window from the lady Subhagya-Sundari’s room. He sprained his ankle with the leap, and he lay for a time upon the ground – where I leave him whilst convenient to me.

When Muldev quitted the presence of Subichar, he resumed his old shape, and returning to his brother Pandit Shashi, told him what he had done. Whereupon Shashi, the misanthrope, looked black, and used hard words and told his friend that good nature and soft-heartedness had caused him to commit a very bad action – a grievous sin. Incensed at this charge, the philanthropic Mulder became angry, and said, ‘I have warned the youth about his purity; what harm can come of it?’

‘Thou hast,’ retorted Shashi, with irritating coolness, ‘placed a sharp weapon in a fool’s hand.’

‘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 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 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 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.