Page:Little Clay Cart (Ryder 1905).djvu/106

70 adorned with any number of jewels, just like Gandharvas and Apsarases. Really, this house is heaven. Tell me, who are you bastards anyway?

Pages. Why, we are bastard pages—

Petted in a stranger's court,

Fed on stranger's food,

Stranger's money makes us sport—

Not so very good.

Stranger women gave us birth,

Stranger men begot;

Baby elephants in mirth,

We're a bastard lot.

Maitreya. Show me the way, madam.

Maid. Come, sir, and enter the sixth court.

Maitreya. [Enters and looks about.] Well! Here in the sixth court they are working in gold and jewels. The arches set with sapphires look as if they were the home of the rainbow. The jewelers are testing the lapis lazuli, the pearls, the corals, the topazes, the sapphires, the cat's-eyes, the rubies, the emeralds, and all the other kinds of gems. Rubies are being set in gold. Golden ornaments are being fashioned. Pearls are being strung on a red cord. Pieces of lapis lazuli are being cleverly polished. Shells are being pierced. Corals are being ground. Wet bundles of saffron are being dried. Musk is being moistened. Sandalwood is being ground to make sandal-water. Perfumes are being compounded. Betel-leaves and camphor are being given to courtezans and their lovers. Coquettish glances are being exchanged. Laughter is going on. Wine is being drunk incessantly with sounds of glee. Here are men-servants, here are maid-servants, and here are men who forget child and wife and money. When the courtezans, who have drunk the wine from the liquor-jars, give them the mitten, they—drink. Show me the way, madam.