Page:Works of Tagore from the Modern Review, 1909-24 Segment 1.pdf/25

Rh would wander from room to room in the pursuit of those whirling fragments the whole of the night.

Amid the whirling eddy of these dreamy-fragments, amid the occasional smell of henna and the twangling of the guitar and the waves of air charged with fragrant spray, I would catch like a flash of lightning the momentary glimpse of a fair demoiselle. She it was who had those saffron-coloured paijamas, her white ruddy soft feet in gold embroidered slippers with curved toes, on her bosom a closefitting bodice wrought with gold, a red cap on her head from which a golden frill fell on her snowy brow and cheeks.

She had made me mad. It was after her that I wandered from room to room, from path to path among the bewildering maze of alleys of that enchanted dreamland in the nether world of sleep.

Sometimes of an evening while dressing myself carefully as a prince of the blood-royal before a large mirror with a candle burning on either side, I would see a sudden reflection of that Persian beauty by the side of my own, and then a sudden turn of her neck, a quick eager glance of intense passion and pain glowing in her large dark eyes, just a suspicion of language on her moist dainty cherry lips, her figure, fair and slim, crowned with youth like a blossoming creeper quickly uplifted in her graceful tilting gait, a dazzling flash of pain and craving and ecstasy and smile and glance and blaze of jewels and silk, and she melted away. A wild gust of wind laden with all the fragrance of hills and woods would put out my light, and I would fling aside my dress and lie down on my bed in the dressing room, my eyes closed and my body thrilling with delight, and there around me amid that breeze and all the perfume of the woods and hills, floated about in the silent gloom many a caress and many a kiss and many a tender touch of hands, and gentle murmurs in my ears, and fragrant breaths on my brow, and a delightfully perfumed kerchief was wafted again and again on my cheeks. A fascinating serpent would, as it were, slowly twist round me her stupefying coils, and heaving a heavy sigh I would lapse into insensibility followed by profound slumber.

One evening I decided to go out on my horse—I do not know who implored me to stay—but I would listen to no entreaties that day. My English hat and coat were resting on a rack and I was about to take them down, when a sudden blast of whirlwind crested with the sands of the Susta and the dead leaves of the Avalli hills caught them up whirling them round and round, while a loud peal of merry laughter rose higher and higher striking all the chords of mirth till it died away in the regions of sunset.

I could not go out for my ride, and from the next day I gave up my queer English coat and hat for good.

That day again at dead of night I heard the stifled heart-breaking sobs of some one—as if below the bed, below the floor, below the stony foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a dark damp grave, some one piteously cried and implored: "Oh, rescue me! Break through these doors of hard illusions, deathlike slumber and fruitless dreams, place me by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart and tearing through hills and woods and across the river take me to the warm radiance of your sunny rooms above!"

Who am I? Oh, how can I rescue thee? What drowning beauty, what incarnate passion shall I drag to the shore from this whirling flux of dreams? O lovely ethereal apparition! Where didst thou flourish and when? By what cool spring, under the shade of what date-groves, wast thou born—in the lap of what homeless wanderer in the desert? What Bedouin brigand snatched thee from thy mother's arms like an opening bud plucked from a wild creeper, placed thee on a horse swift as lightning, crossed the burning sands and took thee to the slave-market of what royal city? And there, what officer of the Badshah observing the beauty of thy bashful blossoming youth paid for thee in gold, placed thee in a golden palanquin, and offered thee as a present for the seraglio of his master? And Oh, the history of that place! That music of the sareng, the jingle of anklets, the occasional flash of dagger through the golden wine of Shiraz, the gall of poison, and the piercing flashing glance! What infinite grandeur, what endless slavery! The slave girls to thy right and