[Footnote 39: Perhaps masseur would be more accurate.]
[Footnote 40: That of Mathura, the keeper of the gambling house.]
[Footnote 41: A humorously exaggerated reference to Indian ascetic practices.]
[Footnote 43: The shampooer, whose transformation is astonishingly sudden.]
[_Enter Charudatta's servant, Vardhamanaka._]
A master, kindly and benevolent, His servants love, however poor he be. The purse-proud, with a will on harshness bent, Pays service in the coin of cruelty. 1
A bullock greedy for a feast of corn You never can prevent; A wife who wants her lord to wear a horn You never can prevent; A man who loves to gamble night and morn You never can prevent; And blemishes[44] that with a man are born You never can prevent. 2
It is some time since Charudatta went to the concert. It is past midnight, and still he does not come. I think I will go into the outer hall and take a nap. [_He does so._]
_Charudatta._ How beautifully Rebhila sang! The lute is indeed a pearl, a pearl not of the ocean.
Gently the anxious lover's heart befriending, Consoling when true lovers may not meet, To love-lorn souls the dearest comforts sending, It adds to sweetest love its more of sweet. 3
_Maitreya._ Well then, let's go into the house.
_Charudatta._ But how wonderfully Master Rebhila sang!
_Maitreya._ There are just two things that always make me laugh. One is a woman talking Sanskrit, and the other is a man who tries to sing soft and low. Now when a woman talks Sanskrit, she is like a heifer with a new rope through her nose; all you hear is "soo, soo, soo." And when a man tries to sing soft and low, he reminds me of an old priest muttering texts, while the flowers in his chaplet dry up. No, I don't like it!
_Charudatta._ My friend, Master Rebhila sang most wonderfully this evening. And still you are not satisfied.
The notes of love, peace, sweetness, could I trace, The note that thrills, the note of passion too, The note of woman's loveliness and grace-- Ah, my poor words add nothing, nothing new! But as the notes in sweetest cadence rang, I thought it was my hidden love who sang. 4
The melody of song, the stricken strings In undertone that half-unconscious clings, More clearly sounding when the passions rise, But ever sweeter as the music dies. Words that strong passion fain would say again, Yet checks their second utterance--in vain; For music sweet as this lives on, until I walk as hearing sweetest music still. 5