The Penguin Book of Classical Indian Love Stories and Lyrics by Ruskin Bond

Author:Ruskin Bond
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9789351188148
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2014-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Woman

34

See how his violence has dispersed my powder of sandal; I spread it with so much art upon my breasts! See how tired my lips are still, and how the down of the couch has been soiled beyond all cleansing, and this veil torn in pieces!

35

Whither are you running, O leaping stranger at the borders of this forest? Has love let fly you, fair boy-arrow, and do you hurtle towards the dwelling of your mistress? The ground rejects you as the tambourine rejects the ball. Are you drunken with immateriality, trying to catch yourself away from your body?

36

I shall go, I shall find a pretext for being away until the twilight. I shall go. As I want time to lick over my happiness, I shall take the long path that passes in front of the fountain, and there I shall tell my comrades that I walk out to see if my father’s fields have suffered from the flood. O victorious Love, I shall go, O wild heart!

37

This is the Winter season of long sleep. I lie down on my couch at twilight and invoke Matha, the god of gilded dreams. I promise offerings and sacrifices and yet I hardly ever dream of Sri Hari. When the storm shakes the walls of my little house, I prefer to lie awake and listen, for the wind walking through the bamboos of my garden says Sri Hari.

38

‘He sleeps, sleep now in your turn,’ said my women, and they left me. Then, in a drunken fit of love, I brushed the cheek of my young bridegroom with my lips. I felt him tremble, and saw that he had only pretended. I was ashamed at the time, but soon I groaned with happiness.

39

I now abandon my body to the kisses of the water; soon to the kisses of the hours. O kisses of the hours, will you also leave a perfume of lustral water upon my spirit?

40

Sometimes you can be so fair, O day; O night, so desolate. Sometimes so sweet, O night; so torturing, O day. If he means never to come back, I wish you were both dead.

41

My father is away on business, and my mother has been out since this morning upon a visit to my invalid sister. Night is falling and I am too young and afraid to stay alone. Come in, O pleasant stranger.

42

As the branch bends beneath the weight of that bird, so I bend beneath the weight of your love for me; but when you leave me, I have not the branch’s resilience. Yet what does it matter, O bird? Go on singing. I had forgotten that your song would soon cease and that I had not got it yet by heart.

43

She said over and over very tenderly: ‘Come and see my parakeet.’ I followed her into the house, but her women spied on us, and she said: ‘My parakeet must be in the garden.’ He was not under the arbour, for the scent of the jasmine was too strong there.

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