The Substance of a Dream Part 8

And it laughs in utter scorn at arguments, and bribes, and barriers, and dangers, and refusals, bent with a burning heart upon one thing only, to reach its goal, dead or alive, no matter which. And when a woman is an incarnation of that object, she moves the whole world with her little finger, and is fatal, and raised into a category above all ordinary rules. And Tarawali was moreover in a peculiar position, for her husband had thrown her away of his own accord, so that she actually belonged to n.o.body but herself, and injured herself alone, if she could not always help yielding when a lover pushed her terribly hard, by touching her heart like Shatrunjaya in the matter of his dream. And very few indeed are the women who would not have done the same, for he was a great musician, and a man among men, and very young. And very rare indeed is the woman who is qualified to censure her. For most women keep their wheel upon the track, either because n.o.body ever tries to make them leave it, or simply for fear, either of being punished, or of other women's tongues. And not one in a crore could have resisted half the pressure that Tarawali had to bear, for the very greatest of a winning woman's charms is exactly the one which she possessed in supreme perfection, her soft and delicious willingness to oblige and please, and place all the sweetness of her personality at the absolute disposal of her lover, as Shatrunjaya understood at the very first sight of her: a thing so utterly irresistible, that when it is combined, as it was in her, with intelligence masculine in its quality, its owner sweeps away every man's reason like a chip in a flood. And there was a special reason for Tarawali's intelligence.

And the G.o.ddess said: What was the reason? And the Moony-crested G.o.d said: It was the necessary consequence of the actions of a former birth. For in the birth before, she was a man, doomed by _gati_[40] to become a woman in the next, by reason of a sin. And she said again: What sin? Then said Maheshwara: Ask me another time, O thou cajoler: for it is a long story, and now I have no more leisure: since I must go and bestow the favour of my presence on a ceremony performed by a pious devotee who has built me a new temple at Waranasi. And canst thou guess who it is?

And the Daughter of the Snow said: How in the world can I guess his name, of whom I never heard before?

And the Moony-crested G.o.d said: It is not a he, but a she: being no other than Tarawali herself, in yet another birth. And she is still only a woman, for she has not yet succeeded in raising herself by merit into the condition of a man. And it may be long before she succeeds. For it is easy to sink, but it is hard for any creature to rise into a status of being superior to its own, and the women who emerge into manhood are very rare. For the goodness that is synonymous with real existence[41] is only to be found in those who have behind them the acc.u.mulated effort and desert of ages, standing on a peak loftier by far than any of thy father's snowy summits, which cannot be attained in any single birth by no matter what exertions or austerities. But when once any being has attained it, emanc.i.p.ation dawns, touching it into colour more beautiful by far than any tints the rising sun has ever thrown on newly fallen mountain snow.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 37: A very beautiful story in the MS., which has not yet seen the light. The opinion of the deity is corroborated by that very clever woman, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who says in one of her letters from Constantinople that if women went without clothes, the face would hardly count at all. Nearly all of them would gain immensely by wearing a permanent veil, but the pretty ones would never consent to it.]

[Footnote 38: Purusha is the philosophical term for the Primordial Male, of which Prakriti is the female ant.i.thesis. The G.o.d is combining Goethe and Swinburne: the "eternal feminine" and the "holy spirit of man."]

[Footnote 39: See note _ante_, p. 47.]

[Footnote 40: A very short word for a very long process, and untranslatable by any English equivalent. It means the whole system of the laws of metempsychosis, running in a long chain forward into the future, and back into the past.]

[Footnote 41: That is, _sat_ or _sattwa_ = goodness, or true being.]