Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/91



end of the matter was that I continued to reside in the house of my parents in Ujjeni.

This, my native town, O stranger, is, as all the world knows, famed throughout India not less for its revels and unstinted enjoyment of life than for its shining palaces and magnificent temples. Its broad streets resound by day with the neighing of horses and the trumpeting of elephants, and by night with the music of lovers' lutes and the songs of gay carousers.

But of all the glories of Ujjeni, none enjoy a reputation so extraordinary as do its courtesans. From the great ladies who live in palaces, building temples to the gods, laying out public parks for the people, and in whose reception-rooms one meets poets, artists, and actors, distinguished strangers, and, occasionally, even princes, down to the common wenches, all are beauties with softly swelling limbs and indescribable grace. At all great festivals, in processions and exhibitions, they form the chief adornment of the beflagged and flower-strewn streets. In crimson dresses, with fragrant wreaths in their hands, the air about them heavy with delicious odours, their attire sparkling with diamonds, dost thou see them, O brother, sitting on their own magnificent grand-stands moving along the streets, with glances full of