The Hungry Stones | Page 6

weight of its own
intense solitude. The day had just closed, and the lamps had not yet
been lighted. As I pushed the door open a great bustle seemed to follow
within, as if a throng of people had broken up in confusion, and rushed
out through the doors and windows and corridors and verandas and
rooms, to make its hurried escape.
As I saw no one I stood bewildered, my hair on end in a kind of ecstatic
delight, and a faint scent of attar and unguents almost effected by age
lingered in my nostrils. Standing in the darkness of that vast desolate
hall between the rows of those ancient pillars, I could hear the gurgle of
fountains plashing on the marble floor, a strange tune on the guitar, the
jingle of ornaments and the tinkle of anklets, the clang of bells tolling
the hours, the distant note of nahabat, the din of the crystal pendants of
chandeliers shaken by the breeze, the song of bulbuls from the cages in
the corridors, the cackle of storks in the gardens, all creating round me
a strange unearthly music.
Then I came under such a spell that this intangible, inaccessible,
unearthly vision appeared to be the only reality in the world--and all
else a mere dream. That I, that is to say, Srijut So-and-so, the eldest son
of So-and-so of blessed memory, should be drawing a monthly salary
of Rs. 450 by the discharge of my duties as collector of cotton duties,
and driving in my dog-cart to my office every day in a short coat and
soia hat, appeared to me to be such an astonishingly ludicrous illusion
that I burst into a horse-laugh, as I stood in the gloom of that vast silent
hall.
At that moment my servant entered with a lighted kerosene lamp in his
hand. I do not know whether he thought me mad, but it came back to
me at once that I was in very deed Srijut So-and-so, son of So-and-so
of blessed memory, and that, while our poets, great and small, alone
could say whether inside of or outside the earth there was a region
where unseen fountains perpetually played and fairy guitars, struck by
invisible fingers, sent forth an eternal harmony, this at any rate was
certain, that I collected duties at the cotton market at Banch, and earned
thereby Rs. 450 per mensem as my salary. I laughed in great glee at my

curious illusion, as I sat over the newspaper at my camp-table, lighted
by the kerosene lamp.
After I had finished my paper and eaten my moghlai dinner, I put out
the lamp, and lay down on my bed in a small side-room. Through the
open window a radiant star, high above the Avalli hills skirted by the
darkness of their woods, was gazing intently from millions and millions
of miles away in the sky at Mr. Collector lying on a humble camp-
bedstead. I wondered and felt amused at the idea, and do not knew
when I fell asleep or how long I slept; but I suddenly awoke with a start,
though I heard no sound and saw no intruder--only the steady bright
star on the hilltop had set, and the dim light of the new moon was
stealthily entering the room through the open window, as if ashamed of
its intrusion.
I saw nobody, but felt as if some one was gently pushing me. As I
awoke she said not a word, but beckoned me with her five fingers
bedecked with rings to follow her cautiously. I got up noiselessly, and,
though not a soul save myself was there in the countless apartments of
that deserted palace with its slumbering sounds and waiting echoes, I
feared at every step lest any one should wake up. Most of the rooms of
the palace were always kept closed, and I had never entered them.
I followed breathless and with silent steps my invisible guide--I cannot
now say where. What endless dark and narrow passages, what long
corridors, what silent and solemn audience-chambers and close secret
cells I crossed!
Though I could not see my fair guide, her form was not invisible to my
mind's eye, --an Arab girl, her arms, hard and smooth as marble, visible
through her loose sleeves, a thin veil falling on her face from the fringe
of her cap, and a curved dagger at her waist! Methought that one of the
thousand and one Arabian Nights had been wafted to me from the
world of romance, and that at the dead of night I was wending my way
through the dark narrow alleys of slumbering Bagdad to a
trysting-place fraught with peril.
At last my fair guide stopped abruptly before a deep blue screen, and
seemed