The King of the Dark Chamber Part 13

SURANGAMA. I know nothing for certain.

SUDARSHANA. But since I came here I have felt suddenly many a time as if somebody were playing on a vina below my window.

SURANGAMA. There is nothing impossible in the idea that somebody indulges his taste for music there.

SUDARSHANA. There is a deep thicket below my window--I try to find out who it is every time I hear the music, but I can see nothing distinctly.

SURANGAMA. Perhaps some wayfarer rests in the shade and plays on the instrument.

SUDARSHANA. It may be so, but my old window in the palace comes back to my memory. I used to come after dressing in the evening and stand at my window, and out of the blank darkness of our lampless meeting-place used to stream forth strains and songs and melodies, dancing and vibrating in endless succession and overflowing profusion, like the pa.s.sionate exuberance of a ceaseless fountain!

SURANGAMA. O deep and sweet darkness! the profound and mystic darkness whose servant I was!

SUDARSHANA. Why did you come away with me from that room?

SURANGAMA. Because I knew he would follow us and take us back.

SUDARSHANA. But no, he will not come--he has left us for good.

Why should he not?

SURANGAMA. If he can leave us like that, then we have no need of him. Then he does not exist for us: then that dark chamber is totally empty and void--no vina ever breathed its music there-- none called you or me in that chamber; then everything has been a delusion and an idle dream.

[Enter the DOORKEEPER]

SUDARSHANA. Who are you?

DOORKEEPER. I am the porter of this palace.

SUDARSHANA. Tell me quickly what you have got to say.

DOORKEEPER. Our King has been taken prisoner.

SUDARSHANA. Prisoner? O Mother Earth! [Faints.]

XIII

[KING OF KANCHI and SUVARNA]

SUVARNA. You say, then, that there will be no more necessity of any fight amongst yourselves?

KANCHI. No, you need not be afraid. I have made all the princes agree that he whom the Queen accepts as her husband will have her, and the others will have to abandon all further struggle.

SUVARNA. But you must have done with me now, Your Highness--so I beg to be let off now. Unfit as I am for anything, the fear of impending danger has unnerved me and stunned my intellect. You will therefore find it difficult to put me to any use.

KANCHI. You will have to sit there as my umbrella-holder.

SUVARNA. Your servant is ready for anything; but of what profit will that be to you?

KANCHI. My man, I see that your weak intellect cannot go with a high ambition in you. You have no notion yet with what favour the Queen looked upon you. After all, she cannot possibly throw the bridal garland on an umbrella-bearer's neck in a company of princes, and yet, I know, she will not be able to turn her mind away from you. So on all accounts this garland will fall under the shade of my regal umbrella.

SUVARNA. Your Highness, you are entertaining dangerous imaginings about me. I pray you, please do not implicate me in the toils of such groundless notions. I beg Your Highness most humbly, pray set me at liberty.

KANCHI. As soon as my object is attained, I shall not keep you one moment from your liberty. Once the end is attained, it is futile to burden oneself with the means.

XIV

[SUDARSHANA and SURANGAMA at the Window]

SUDARSHANA. Must I go to the a.s.sembly of the princes, then? Is there no other means of saving father's life?

SURANGAMA. The King of Kanchi has said so.

SUDARSHANA . Are these the words worthy of a King? Did he say so with his own lips?

SURANGAMA. No, his messenger, Suvarna, brought this news.

SUDARSHANA. Woe, woe is me!

SURANGAMA. And he produced a few withered flowers and said, "Tell your Queen that the drier and more withered these souvenirs of the Spring Festival become, the fresher and more blooming do they grow within in my heart."

SUDARSHANA. Stop! Tell me no more. Do not torment me any more.

SURANGAMA. Look! There sit all the princes in the great a.s.sembly. He who has no ornament on his person, except a single garland of flowers round his crown--he is the King of Kanchi.

And he who holds the umbrella over his head, standing behind him--that is Suvarna.

SUDARSHANA. Is that Suvarna? Are you quite certain?

SURANGAMA. Yes, I know him well.

SUDARSHANA. Can it be that it is this man that I saw the other day? No, no,--I saw something mingled and transfused and blended with light and darkness, with wind and perfume,--no, no, it cannot be he; that is not he.

SURANGAMA. But every one admits that he is exceedingly beautiful to look at.

SUDARSHANA. How could that beauty fascinate me? Oh, what shall I do to purge my eyes of their pollution?

SURANGAMA. You will have to wash them in that bottomless darkness.

SUDARSHANA. But tell me, Surangama, why does one make such mistakes?

SURANGAMA. Mistakes are but the preludes to their own destruction.