CHAPTER II.
IDOL WORSHIP.
The next day the prisoner resumed his confession:
I was now ruler of a province, with a revenue of twenty lacs ofrupees. I had a remarkably handsome and clever wife, with eyes thanwhich no gem was brighter.
But, there was a thought that troubled me night and day:
What was to become of my wife in Holland?
My religion forbade two wives. This thought so troubled me, that atlast I confided it to Sumro Begum.
"I don't see why you considered that necessary," interrupted thechair. "You had already told so many lies, another one would certainlyhave found room beside the rest!"
I beg your honor to remember that I vowed at the grave of my poorfather to lead a God-fearing life, and to let nothing but the truthpass my lips. The ring made of the coffin-nail, which I wore on mythumb, constantly reminded me of my vow. Therefore, I considered it myduty to tell Sumro Begum that I had a legal wife in Holland; and that,were I to go back to her, I should find my child on her bosom.
The Begum was not in the least offended when I made my confession; onthe contrary, she commended me for telling the truth. "He who proveshimself faithful to the absent one, will certainly remain loyal to theone at hand," she quoted. Only a religion stood between her and me;and that might easily be changed.
"If we remain Catholics, of course two wives are out of the question,"decided the Begum, "because that would be bigamy. If we go over to theBrahmans, their sacred books forbid the wife to occupy the throne withher husband, and the widow from marrying again. But, there is thefaith of Siva; it permits a man to have more than one wife; itacknowledges no difference of rank between man and man--as do theBrahman and the Christian religions--nor does it consider a woman asoulless animal, men and women are alike human beings. An adherent ofthe Siva faith may even take a foreigner to wife; he may eat at thesame table with his wife, or wives, after the grace before food,prescribed by the Prophet Bazawa, has been repeated. We will adoptthis faith, then you may keep your other wife, and I will share withher your love and respect."
I thought over this suggestion for several days, for the fate of anentire province depended on my decision.
On the one hand a people whose prosperity depended on how I wouldsettle the question; a yearly income of several million thalers, abeautiful and clever wife with a heart filled with love for me, withall the delights of paradise on her lips--on the other: the Romanpope, with St. Peter's keys in his possession!
In my position, your highness, and honorable gentlemen, how would youhave decided?
"Get along with you, _perversus nebulo_!" exclaimed his highness,smiling. "You want us to commit ourselves, do you? I'll warrant yoususpect what would have been our decision! I don't in the least doubtbut even the mayor here, would elect to kiss a beautiful woman ratherthan the pope's slipper--especially if the choice were submitted tohim in the province of Sardhana! It is enough: you became an idolworshipper--forced to it by circumstances. It is your own affair, andone which you will have to settle with a higher tribunal than thisone. This indictment may be erased from the record."
Not even the mayor objected to this decision. At first, though, hewrinkled his brows and looked serious; but in the end he smiled withthe rest; and dictated to the notary, that the transgression lastconfessed might be recorded as condoned by the court.
Most worthy and honorable gentlemen, resumed the prisoner, I must nowtell you something about the customs and manners of that land whitherI had been led by the hand of destiny. Even the sky over there isunlike ours. Why, the sun of Holland would not do for a moon in India!Yon flaming heavens heat the blood and brain to boiling; the humidatmosphere creates phenomena which are like the phantasmagoria ofdelirium; triple suns, and wreaths of flame appear in the sky; whenfrequently the mysterious _Fata Morgana_ portrays inverted landscapes,and cities; the vivid coloring of the clouds causes the most brillianthues on the earth below to appear faded and insignificant.
Forests, fields, houses, human beings, at times take on an ocheroushue, as if the world were dead; and when a rain falls, it is a delugeof fire from a sky of brass. And sometimes, the cloud-burst will belike a rain of blood, and the whole earth will glow with the mostbrilliant crimson hue.
On very, very hot days, when the native farmers trudge along thehigh-road (the high caste native never travels on foot, nor appears inpublic at midday) the dust rising from their feet looks like a fierymist, and makes one think he is looking on the damned in hades walkingamid the flames!
And there too the soil is so different from ours. There the plants wegrow in pots in our hot houses thrive and luxuriate under the opensky, and form a wilderness, the lurking place of tigers and lions, inwhich the fragrance of the very air is intoxicating as wine.
The hundred different varieties of fruits, which ripen in successionthroughout the year, explain sufficiently how a people that outnumbersthe entire population of Europe are able to subsist on vegetable dietalone, without the nourishment of meats, which their religionprohibits.
The borasses palm supplies them with honey, oil, wine, and sugar;another palm yields flour, butter, and milk; and they have a tree onwhich grow loaves of bread the size of a human head; raw, thisvegetable bread is a sweet fruit; baked, it is as palatable as abakers' loaf and--
"Stop! stop!" cried the chair, rapping on the table with his stick."That is going too far! Of all the lies you have told us, this oneabout loaves of bread growing on a tree is the most outrageouslyincredible."
"I am very sorry that your honor refuses to believe there is such atree. The proof that I am not lying may easily be obtained, if yourhonor will send a deputation to India, to make inquiries concerningthe truth of my statements, if it turns out that a single one of themis lacking in truth, then your honor may disbelieve all the rest."
"Oho!" sneered the chair, "you would like to postpone this trial for ayear or more, while a searching commission travelled to the end of theworld and back--wouldn't you? We prefer to believe that livingcreatures also hang on trees like fruits."
"And so they do!" responded the prisoner. "There is a sort of largesquirrel, or small dog, that has wings and flies, and at night hangsby its hind legs to the limbs of trees, and looks like a gourd."
"Didn't I say so?" again interrupted the chair with a choleric laugh."Flying dogs that sleep hanging by their feet! Go on with your fables,you reprobate!--this honorable court is sitting for the sole purposeof believing every lie you choose to tell. I am curious to hear howyour bread growing on trees, and your flying dogs are going to clearyou of the crimes of bigamy and regicide."
I am coming to that, your honor. The entire world which environs thehuman being in that distant land, works an irresistible influence onhis nature, and the native inhabitant compels, with his peculiarreligion, customs, his deeply-rooted prejudices, the foreignerresident to adopt a mode of life antipodal to that he led at home.
The majority of the natives wear no clothing at all; while the restbend under a costly burden of greatest splendor.
The Indian is a mixture of the ideally perfect, and the grotesquelyhideous, heroic at one moment, cowardly the next, free as a bird, andrestricted as an anchorite. He is to be envied for his paradisalsimplicity, and admired for his gigantic creations. His cities surpassin magnificence and grandeur those of Europe. His churches aremountains, enormous edifices hewn by artist hands from a single rock;with thousands of majestic columns, and armies of idols; while hishuts are more abjectly wretched than the dwellings of our beavers. TheIndian, with his thousand gods, to all of whom he renders service andsacrifices--and of whom not one possesses the power to help him--is sogentle-hearted, that he will not take the life of an animal; allowshimself to be devoured by lions and tigers; crushed under foot by therhinoceros; bitten by serpents; and stung by venomous insects--andyet, he considers it no sin to exterminate an entire neighboring folk.
Oh, that is a strange country: where the aristocrat, if touched by amember of an
other caste, considers himself defiled, and possesses theright to cut off the hand, or arm that touched him, and the mutilatedpariah accepts the punishment as his due. Where the wife is burnedalive on the funeral pyre of her husband; where the invalid is placedon the banks of a river, and declared to be already dead, so that,should he recover, he may not return to the living, but seek the"community of the dead," which is made up of one-time invalids,recovered like himself.
Dwelling amid such a people, every idea the European entertains whenhe lands on that shore very soon fades away; for, there, they havedifferent virtues and different sins.
"This lengthy dissertation I take it," interrupted the chair, "is forthe purpose of acquainting the court that bigamy and regicide arepermissable crimes among that wonderful people?"
Bigamy is permissable, your honor, on conditions: if the first wifeconsents, her husband may marry a second. But, before the consent ofthe first wife is secured, he may not kiss and embrace his second.