Page:The Globe of Gold.djvu/1

Rh THE GLOBE OF GOLD.

[A Humorous Story from the pen of the late Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Translated by M. S. K.]

Koylas Peak, beneath the budding Deodars, sat Mahadev and his spouse Parvati, on tiger skins, throwing the dice. The stake was a globe of gold. The fault in Mahadev's play was that he could not win the stake. Had he been able to do so at the churning of the ocean, the poison would not have lodged in his throat.

But Parvati was clever at winning the stake; in proof of which, witness her annual three days' worship on earth. However it might be with the dice, at weeping she was unrivalled, having superhuman capacity in that direction. Thus, if a high throw fell to Mahadev she roused the neighbourhood with her cries, and when a low number fell to herself she would cast at the three-eyed Mahadev a glance calculated to destroy the universe, so that though he got the winning throw, he appeared not to notice it, and lost the stake. This was the invariable result.

So Mahadev consented to bestow upon Parvati the golden ball, which she had no sooner obtained than she threw it down upon the earth: whereupon the five-faced god demanded with a frown, "Why have you thrown away my gift?"

Parvati replied, "Lord! your ball must certainly possess some wonderfully beneficent property. I have cast it down to benefit mankind."

The god made answer, "Lady, no good can result from opposing the laws by which Prajâpati, Vishnu and I have framed the universe. Prosperity can come only from obedience to these laws. A golden ball can serve no purpose. If it have any beneficent property, the laws being broken, it will injure mankind. At your suggestion I have endued it with a special quality. Sit here, and watch how it works."

Kali Kanta Babu was a man of good position, in age about thirty-five, of a goodly presence. Some years earlier