Tales of Vampires & Werewolves. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 4064066382049
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age draw the sword of Love, they throw away the scabbard of Precaution. But you yawn—I weary you—it is time for us to move.”

      Two watches of the night had passed, and there was profound stillness on earth. The young men then walked quietly through the shadows, till they reached the western gate of the palace, and found the wicket ajar. The minister’s son peeped in and saw the porter dozing, stately as a Brahman deep in the Vedas, and behind him stood a veiled woman seemingly waiting for somebody. He then returned on tiptoe to the place where he had left his master, and with a parting caution against modesty and security, bade him fearlessly glide through the wicket. Then having stayed a short time at the gate listening with anxious ear, he went back to the old woman’s house.

      Vajramukut penetrating to the staircase, felt his hand grasped by the veiled figure, who motioning him to tread lightly, led him quickly forwards. They passed under several arches, through dim passages and dark doorways, till at last running up a flight of stone steps they reached the apartments of the princess.

      Then another veiled figure, the beautiful Princess Padmavati, came up and disclosed herself, and dazzled the eyes of her delighted Vajramukut. She led him into an alcove, made him sit down, rubbed sandal powder upon his body, hung a garland of jasmine flowers round his neck, sprinkled rose-water over his dress, and began to wave over his head a fan of peacock feathers with a golden handle.

      “Nay, great king!” replied Padmavati, with the most fascinating of smiles, “you have taken so much trouble for my sake in coming here, it is right that I perform service for you.”

      Upon which her favourite slave, taking the pankha from the hand of the princess, exclaimed, “This is my duty. I will perform the service; do you two enjoy yourselves!”

      The lovers then began to chew betel, which, by the bye, they disposed of in little agate boxes which they drew from their pockets, and they were soon engaged in the tenderest conversation.

      Here the Baital paused for a while, probably to take breath. Then he resumed his tale as follows:

      Enjoy the present hour, ’tis thine; be this, O man, thy law;

       Who e’er resew the yester? Who the morrow e’er foresaw?

      And this highly philosophical axiom—

      Eat, drink, and love—the rest’s not worth a fillip.

      “By means of which he hoped, Raja Vikram!” said the demon, not heeding his royal carrier’s “ughs” and “poohs,” “to become in course of time almost as clever as his mistress.”

      At first she suspected that the stratagems which had won her heart were the results of a deep-laid plot proceeding from her lover. But clever women are apt to be rarely sharp-sighted in every matter which concerns themselves. She frequently determined that a third was in the secret. She therefore made no allusion to it. Before long the enamoured Vajramukut had told her everything, beginning with the diatribe against love pronounced by the minister’s son, and ending with the solemn warning that she, the pretty princess, would some day or other play her husband a foul trick.

      “If I do not revenge myself upon him,” thought the beautiful Padmavati, smiling like an angel as she listened to the youth’s confidence, “may I become a gardener’s ass in the next birth!”

      Having thus registered a vow, she broke silence, and praised to the skies the young pradhan’s wisdom and sagacity; professed herself ready from gratitude to become his slave, and only hoped that one day or other she might meet that true friend by whose skill her soul had been gratified in its dearest desire. “Only,” she concluded, “I am convinced that now my Vajramukut knows every corner of his little Padmavati’s heart, he will never expect her to do anything but love, admire, adore and kiss him!” Then suiting the action to the word, she convinced him that the young minister had for once been too crabbed and cynic in his philosophy.

      But after the lapse of a month Vajramukut, who had eaten and drunk and slept a great deal too much, and who had not once hunted, became bilious in body and in mind melancholic. His face turned yellow, and so did the whites of his eyes; he yawned, as liver patients generally do, complained occasionally of sick headaches, and lost his appetite: he became restless and anxious, and once when alone at night he thus thought aloud: “I have given up country, throne, home, and everything else, but the friend by means of