This time he was successful in his attempt to get near Sarna. He waited until she saw him and then ventured a look which told all. And Sarna—he could not be deceiving him-self this time—answered his look by quickly raising her long eyelashes. Pak’s hands tingled; he longed to go straight to her and seize her from behind. He bit his lips. Someone gave him a nudge and said, “They are beginning.” Pak came out of his trance; he worked his way back through the crowd and bent again over his gong.
But now his eyes were caught by a sight which worked more powerfully on him even than Sarna. The large reception balé, which rose above the walls of the second court, had been illuminated in the meanwhile with many lamps, and female servants were busy laying down finely woven mats for spectators who could find no room below. The light shone and danced on the tiled wall at the back, and there, let into the wall, Pak saw plates. There were many plates and they were beautiful. Pak strained his eyes and even got on to the wall of the courtyard to see them better. There were no flowers on these plates; they had only a pattern in blue streaks that seemed to him Chinese. On the plates which Pak had let into the earth of his sawah there were flowers. His plates were whiter and there were roses on them, whose fragrance you could smell if you looked at them long enough. Pak had dug up his treasure twice already to feast his eyes with the sight of it. He felt for one dizzy moment of overweening pride that he was richer than the raja himself. The possession of the plates had made another man of him. But for them, he would never have dared to look with meaning eyes at the daughter of the wealthy Wajan and to dream of her as he did.
Next there was a surging and heaving as a gilded chair came along on the shoulders of six bearers above the heads of the crowd. On it sat an old man with white hair and beard. This was the Tjokorda of Pametjutan, the uncle of the lord Alit and co-regent. His numerous retinue followed him and assisted him, as the chair was put down, to rise totteringly to his feet. He sat down on a raised seat in the middle of the large balé and began talking to the other spectators there. Several men ran off excitedly to announce to the lord that his uncle had arrived.
The wives had already left their balés and were assembling in front of the lord’s house, followed by their serving-women. They were splendidly dressed in trailing sarongs and silk breast-bands. Black lace shawls hung over one shoulder. They wore many jewels and their hair was smoothly drawn back from their foreheads and adorned with flowers. They looked like bright exotic birds as they rustled along, laughing, talking, jealously inspecting one another or clinging together softly in mutual admiration. They felt each other’s dresses appraisingly and their eyes shone, for it was an exciting break in the routine of life in the palace to show themselves to the eyes of other men.
The burble of their eager voices ceased as the lord, accompanied by Raka, emerged. The women held their breath. Raka was already arrayed for the dance and a magnetic force seemed to radiate from him. He was clad in a white undergarment that enclosed his slender legs and from his shoulders fluttered bunches of bright-colored ribbons gleaming with gold. He wore a kain of stiff gold-painted material and at his waist was a kris with a sparkling hilt. He had a tall head-dress, triangular in shape, on which hundreds of silver discs on short stems quivered and gleamed. This lofty plaited helmet made him look very tall and erect and war-like.
He paused for a moment in the portico as though he was aware of his own beauty and wished to give the women time to admire him.
The lord lingered at his side for a moment with his little finger hooked in Raka’s; then he let go of him. He smiled on his wives, who formed up in a rank, and called out a greeting to them. They were beautiful and his eye took in their beauty with satisfaction. “You smell like a flower-garden,” he said with a smile. This joke of their lord was greeted by a loud titter. Tumun, whom the others considered cheeky and forward, approached him with a roguish look. “One does not know which is the handsomer, Raka or our lord,” she said audibly to her serving-woman. Bernis turned on the pert creature with a contemptuous look; and then she looked at the lord until she had caught his eye and drooped her eyelids and smiled at him with an expression that betrayed a previous intimacy with him. He returned her look and her smile. Her hungry heart fluttered and she felt that now there was an understanding between them. Muna, the slave-girl, whispered over her shoulder. “The lord will not read his books tonight.” Bernis pressed her lips together and took her place in the procession down to the first court. Alit looked after his wives. “Of all the things,” he said, resuming the discourse about his ill-humor which had just been interrupted, “of all the things I had to promise the Dutch the one that will trouble me least to have renounced is the burning of my widows. I do not care for the thought of making myself at home in heaven with a bevy of wives. Their chatter and their jealousy would make residence there a trial.”
Raka laughed loudly, but a moment later his expression changed. “The gamelan has begun playing,” he said hastily. The notes which ushered in the first passage of the music could be heard coming from the outer court; and when Alit looked up again, Raka was already through the gate. He saw him once more as he emerged into view in the outer court among the group of dancers in the arena which was marked off by two men holding up sacred umbrellas.
The lord, now joined by his impatient dignitaries, stood a moment longer in the gateway leading down to the outer court. He smiled without knowing it as he surveyed the dim brilliance below, the throng arrayed in all its finery, the naked children with large shining eyes. He knew many of the people and loved them all.
The gamelan played a freely moving tender melody alternating with the loud, quick and warlike notes given out by the beat of the drum. He loved these moments of expectancy before the dance began, when a prickling of suspense ran over his skin. Sometimes merely to hear the overture made him feel that he could shrink and become a child again. His eyes had feasted on the golden splendor and movement of the dance from his earliest years: before he could even speak he had sat on his mother’s lap and watched it, and something of the dreamy delight which had gripped him in those days lingered with him still. He looked forward with almost painful impatience to seeing Raka dance and he felt his heart, that often seemed asleep, beating fast. Ever since, as naked five-year-old children, they had learnt to know north from south and east from west, they had always been together. Although he was a year younger than his friend, he felt far, far older. He had seen Raka grow up, happy and impetuous and endowed with a tempestuous soul. No one could laugh as Raka could, nor be so unhappy, nor so wildly excited at a cock-fight, nor so still and silent when the sun went down. No one in all Bali could dance as he could.
Raka, surrounded by the other dancers, advanced with his hands on Lambon’s shoulders. He felt her tremble and bent down to her. “You are afraid, aren’t you?” he asked. She did not reply, but only silently shook her head. “You have only not to forget to turn away when I come with the kris.”
“I am not afraid of you,” Lambon answered, glancing up at him over her shoulder. It was her part to represent Supanaka, the sister of Rahwana, the demon-prince, who was sent by him to seduce Laksmana in the form of a beautiful nymph. He, however, cut off her nose and sent her back to the dark regions whence she came. They had rehearsed again and again that moment in the dance when Laksmana raised his kris above her head, for the dance had to go smoothly on and a false movement on Lambon’s part might cause her to be wounded by the blade.
Raka walked round her to see if her dress sat rightly. He adjusted one of the many cambodia flowers in her crown of gilded leather pierced with a lace-work pattern. He went behind her and tied the zone of gold which enclosed her body down to the hips and drew it tighter. The gamelan played. Lambon’s face smelt bitter-sweet of flowers, kunjit powder, and the lamp-black which framed her forehead. As Raka wound the zone about her he felt her budding breasts.