CHAPTER II.
At the inn.
If this woman happened to have been reproachlessly beautiful then I might venture the remark "Gentleman reader, she is as much beautiful as your sweetheart, and, fair reader, she is just your shadow reflected in your looking glass." This would have been pen-pourtraying to its finish. Unfortunately she was not a faultless beauty. So I have to resist the temptation. The reason in saying that she was not a perfect beauty is, first, she was a trifle taller than the average medium figure,—secondly, her upper and lower lips slightly curled up inwards, and, thirdly, she had not a complexion of cream-and-rose. Though comparatively of a taller height, her body was full of a buxom bosom and her limbs showed perfect fulness and rotundity. As in the rains the cringing creeper sways majestically with its green gorgeous foliage, so her form displayed all the infinite graces on account of the lusty fulness of life. As a matter of course, her figure, though, to some degree, a shade taller in size, looked all the more resplendent because of its full-blooded roundness. Amongst the class of beauties of the really milk-and-rose style, some wears the hue of the liquid silver of the full moon and some the colour of the russet-tinted dawn. She had none of the complexions of the above two categories, so we can never say she had actually any brilliancy of skin though in magic effects her charms played no less a potency. She was a little darker. But that never suggests the blackness, of which Shyama's mother or Shyama, the good-looking, is the type. The transparency of her skin had as much sparkle as the glow of the dissolved gold. If the white splendour of the full-moon or the first flush of the saffron-coloured dawn be taken the criteria of the skin of the dainty eves, then the refreshing yellow-and-green of the new shafts of mango blossoms shooting up in the divinest of seasons may be made the comparing standard of this damsel's complexion. If amongst readers there might be many who are chivalrous enough to press the claims of the olive-complexioned beauties to the fore-front, and, also, as chance would have it, there might be anyone whose smitten soul has been left to the care of a dark-skinned witch, then the latter in any case can never be called colour-blind. If any body is offended at this, let him paint before his mind's eye the dark silky locks kissing the bright forehead like the deep rows of black bees lining the new-blown mango blossoms—let him imagine the pair of arched eye-brows under a shapely fore-head, as beautiful as a three-quarter silvery moon, overblown by ringlets—Let him idealise the smooth velvety cheeks of the rich mellowed hues of golden mangos—let him pourtray a couple of small thin red
lips like two streaks of scarlet, and, it is then, that he might have the impression of this fair stranger as the queen of beauty. Her eyes, though not wide, were full of brilliance and fringed with bowed lashes. The glance was steady but keen and searching. When the eyes are fixed upon you, you, at once, feel that this woman is probing the bottom of your heart. By degrees, the glaring intensity is apt to melt and the looks soften and become mellifluously affectionate. Sometimes, again, they bespeak certain languor and lassitude, born of voluptuous abandonment, appearing the soft dreamy bed of the blind baby-god with bow and arrows. At times, the eye-balls expand and dilate hot with desires full of amorous coyness. Again, they shoot up, at intervals, some sinister side-long glances resembling vivid flashes amidst dark clouds.
The face was lit up with two fine expressions—first, the forcefulness of an all-mastering intelligence,—secondly, an over-weening conceit. So, when she chanced to stand up imperiously and bend her swan-neck, she looked the right royal type of the feminist. She passed her seven-and-twenty summers—she the torrential river of the rich, ripe, golden autumn that has but set in. Her charms flowed and sparkled full to the brim, ready to break over the contents. The ripening fulness of those graces was more soul-enrapturing than the colour, the eye and all else besides. In her youthful sleekness, the whole frame coloured and quivered with a virility like the autumnal river sheening and shimmering under the gentlest sigh of a wind and the graceful rippling spread out the charms in all their shifting colours and contours.
Nabokumar with eager eyes was gazing upon this glorious form with all the changing shades of beauties. The fair creature caught sight of Nabakumar's hard stare and watchful speculating eyes. "What do you look into intently?" asked she "My beauty?"
Nabokumar was gentle-born. He felt awkward and hung down his head in shame.
Seeing him silent, she archly remarked "Have you not ever seen a woman?—Or you think me an extraordinary beauty?"
Naturally, this might have amounted to a reproach. But the radiant smile that accompanied the words, took off the biting sting. So it savoured more of a jest than anything else. Nabokumar saw her tongue had sharp edges. hen why should he not reply her sharp remark ?
"I have seen many a woman” answered he "but never such a beautiful one."
The woman boastfully asked "Not a single one?"
The soft sweet charms of Kapalkundala floated before Nabokumar's mind, and, he, too, proudly returned "Not a single one! No—I can never say that."
"So far so good" rejoined the woman. "Is she your wife?"
"Why? What above all things sends you on the thought of a wife?"
"The Bengalee always regards his wife as an unsurpassed beautiy."
"I am a true-born Bengalee. But you, too, speak the Bengali dialect. To what country else do you belong then?"
The damsel glanced at her own style of dress and said "As ill-luck would have it, this hapless self is not a Bengalee woman but an up-country Mussalmani."
Nabokumar eyed her up and down and saw the dress exactly suited the up-country fashion, though she was speaking the Bengali as much chastely as a born Bengalee.
After a short spell the young woman resumed "Sir, you have gathered all the information about me by parry of words. Now be pleased to let me know your own particulars. May I enquire the place where that incomparable beauty rules the house-hold?"
"Saptagrain is my native land" replied Nabokumar.
The foreigner added no answer. Suddenly she bent her head and plied her fingers brightening up the lamp-light.
Shortly after, without raising her head, she softly broke in "The servant's name is Moti. May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?"
"Nabokumar Sharma" said Nabokumar.
The light was blown out by a deep sigh and a hush fell in the room.