The King of the Dark Chamber Part 11

SURANGAMA. O my Queen, I have made all your good and all your evil my own as well; will you treat me as a stranger still? I must go with you.

IX

[The KING OF KANYA KUBJA, father of SUDARSHANA, and his MINISTER]

KING OF KANYA KUBJA. I heard everything before her arrival.

MINISTER. The princess is waiting alone outside the city gates on the bank of the river. Shall I send people to welcome her home?

KING OF KANYA KUBJA. What! She who has faithlessly left her husband--do you propose trumpeting her infamy and shame to every one by getting up a show for her?

MINISTER. Shall I then make arrangements for her residence at the palace?

KING OF KANYA KUBJA. You will do nothing of the sort. She has left her place as the Empress of her own accord--here she will have to work as a maid-servant if she wants to stay in my house.

MINISTER. It will be hard and bitter to her, Your Highness.

KING OF KANYA KUBJA. If I seek to save her from her sufferings, then I am not worthy to be her father.

MINISTER. I shall arrange everything as you wish, Your Highness.

KING OF KANYA KUBJA. Let it be kept a secret that she is my daughter; otherwise we shall all be in an awful trouble.

MINISTER. Why do you fear such disaster, Your Highness?

KING OF KANYA KUBJA. When woman swerves from the right path, then she appears fraught with the direst calamity. You do not know with what deadly fear this daughter of mine has inspired me--she is coming to my home laden with peril and danger.

X

[Inner Apartments of the Palace. SUDARSHANA and SURANGAMA]

SUDARSHANA. Go away from me, Surangama! A deadly anger rages within me--I cannot bear anybody--it makes me wild to see you so patient and submissive.

SURANGAMA. Whom are you angry with?

SUDARSHANA. I do not know; but I wish to see everything destroyed and convulsed in ruin and disaster! I left my place on the throne as the Empress in a moment's time. Did I lose my all to sweep the dust, to sweat and slave in this dismal hole? Why do the torches of mourning not flare up for me all over the world? Why does not the earth quake and tremble? Is my fall but the un.o.bserved dropping of the puny bean-flower? Is it not more like the fall of a glowing star, whose fiery blazon bursts the heavens asunder?

SURANGAMA. A mighty forest only smokes and smoulders before it bursts into a conflagration: the time has not come yet.

SUDARSHANA. I have thrown my queen's honour and glory to the dust and winds--but is there no human being who will come out to meet my desolate soul here? Alone--oh, I am fearfully, terribly alone!

SURANGAMA. You are not alone.

SUDARSHANA. Surangama, I shall not keep anything from you. When he set the palace on fire, I could not be angry with him. A great inward joy set my heart a-flutter all the while. What a stupendous crime! What glorious prowess! It was this courage that made me strong and fired my own spirits. It was this terrible joy that enabled me to leave everything behind me in a moment's time. But is it all my imagination only? Why is there no sign of his coming anywhere?

SURANGAMA. He of whom you are thinking did not set fire to the palace--it is the King of Kanchi who did it.

SUDARSHANA. Coward! But is it possible? So handsome, so bewitching, and yet no manhood in him! Have I deceived myself for the sake of such a worthless creature? O shame! Fie on me!

... But, Surangama, don't you think that your King should yet have come to take me back? [SURANGAMA remains silent.] You think I am anxious to go back? Never! Even if the King really came I should not have returned. Not even once did he forbid me to come away, and I found all the doors wide open to let me out! And the stony and dusty road over which I walked--it was nothing to it that a queen was treading on it. It is hard and has no feelings, like your King; the meanest beggar is the same to it as the highest Empress. You are silent! Well, I tell you, your King's behaviour is--mean, brutal, shameful!

SURANGAMA. Every one knows that my King is hard and pitiless--no one has ever been able to move him.

SUDARSHANA. Why do you, then, call him day and night?

SURANGAMA. May he ever remain hard and relentless like rock--may my tears and prayers never move him! Let my sorrows be ever mine only--and may his glory and victory be for ever!

SUDARSHANA. Surangama, look! A cloud of dust seems to rise over the eastern horizon across the fields.

SURANGAMA. Yes, I see it.

SUDARSHANA. Is that not like the banner of a chariot?

SURANGAMA. Indeed, a banner it is.

SUDARSHANA. Then he is coming. He has come at last!

SURANGAMA. Who is coming?

SUDARSHANA. Our King--who else? How could he live without me?

It is a wonder how he could hold out even for these days.

SURANGAMA. No, no, this cannot be the King.

SUDARSHANA. "No," indeed! As if you know everything! Your King is hard, stony, pitiless, isn't he? Let us see how hard he can be. I knew from the beginning that he would come--that he would have to rush after me. But remember, Surangama, I never for a single moment asked him to come. You will see how I make your King confess his defeat to me! Just go out, Surangama, and let me know everything. [SURANGAMA goes out.] But shall I go if he comes and asks me to return with him? Certainly not! I will not go! Never!

[Enter SURANGAMA]

SURANGAMA. It is not the King, my Queen.

SUDARSHANA. Not the King? Are you quite sure? What! he has not come yet?

SURANGAMA. No, my King never raises so much dust when he comes.

n.o.body can know when he comes at all.

SUDARSHANA. Then this is--

SURANGAMA. The same: he is coming with the King of Kanchi.

SUDARSHANA. Do you know his name?

SURANGAMA. His name is Suvarna.