Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/35

 "I see, my dear friend," this incorrigible jester went on, "that the idea of the magic of Kama hath given thee a great fright, and, truly, we shall be obliged to do something in order to avert his anger. In such a case, however, I feel that woman's counsel is not to be despised. I shall show this picture to my beloved Medini, who was also of those at the dance and who is, furthermore, the foster-sister of the fair Vasitthi."

With that, he was about to go away, taking the panel with him. Perceiving, however, what the rogue had in mind, I bade him wait, as the picture still lacked an inscription. I mixed some beautiful red of a brilliant hue and in a few minutes had written, in the daintiest of script, a verse of four lines which related in simple language the incident of the golden ball. The verse, when read backwards, stated that the ball with which she had played, was my heart, which I myself sent back to her even at the risk of her rejecting it. It was possible, however, to read the verse perpendicularly through the lines, and when so read, from top to bottom, it voiced in saddest words the despair into which my separation from her had plunged me; did one read it in the opposite direction, then the reader learned that nevertheless I dared to hope.

But of all that I conveyed to her in such surreptitious fashion, I said nothing, so that Somadatta was by no means enchanted with this specimen of my poetic skill. It seemed to him much too simple, and he informed me that I ought certainly to mention how the god Kama, alarmed at my asceticism, had by his magic skill created this picture with which to tempt me and that by it I had been wholly vanquished—Somadatta, like so many others, being most of all taken with his own wit.