The Mermaid

He was a young man in the flower of youth—in his countenance the delight of the eye, the joy of the heart, the gladness of souls.

He was the ornament of his people and the face of his clan; they bent themselves toward him and smoothed his way before him, and singled him out with love and fond companionship. And those around him kept rousing his restive soul with talk of marriage—of the pleasure in it for the heart, and the peace and ease that nature finds in it.

One of the kings' envoys said to him: "As for the princess of Bahlik—how beautiful she is! She is like a bouquet of hillside blossoms in spring!"

But the young prince turned his face away, as though nothing of the talk had touched him, and gave no answer.

Another said: "...And there is the princess of Kandhdar... blooming and elegant, radiant and resplendent, like the radiance of a well-ordered cluster of grapes." But the young prince slipped away into the forest and did not come out again for some time.

A page from the palace of the king—his father—said: "...Beautiful is the princess of Kambhuj, beautiful as the bow of the horizon when the lights and glimmers of dawn break forth... and her eyes are drowsy and dreaming, sparkling like bright drops of dew!"

But the young prince buried himself in his book, turning its pages, never lifting his eyes from it and never waking!

The royal father sought out his son's confidant and companion, asking him what had turned his son away from marriage and made it hateful to him!

The prince's companion said: "O august King, what has made the prince disdain marriage is what he has heard of the brides of the waters; he has sworn in his secret heart that his wife shall be one of the brides of the sea, the daughters of the water..."

The king wished to learn something of the matter of these brides, so he summoned to him the men of learning and the masters of wisdom... But the masters of wisdom did not know... and the men of learning had seen nothing in their books of the alleged brides. They are those brides of fancy, phantoms of the imagination—so said the Indian merchants who ride the sea!

So the aged king called his son's companion to him, to ask who had told his son this imagined fancy. He answered: he is a madman who roams the horizons; and the prince heard from him what he heard in the forest, while he was out hunting! So the king sent his men to search for this mad vagabond and bring him before him, until they found him and brought him to the king's grand and splendid palace.

The king asked him where the kingdom of the water brides might lie.

The madman said: "It lies just beyond the northern borders of your kingdom, O mighty King, at the foot of Mount Chitrahi, where the lake of Kamyaka wells forth..."

The king said: "And can a man see the water brides there?"

The crazed wanderer answered: "Yes! A man may see them, but he can scarcely know them, for the obscurity and mystery that wrap them round; yet I know the enchanting brides by the wondrous sounds of their pipes, or by a blazing gleam of their light!"

The king grew angry at this raving and said: "He is mad indeed! The life of vagrancy and wandering has touched his mind—drive him out."

But the prince had listened to that sublime raving, and what he heard clung to his heart, and there was no driving it out.

★

Spring came, the splendor of its beauty all but stealing men's minds away. Its blossoms burst forth in the forest, filling it with loveliness and fragrance! The prince mounted his steed and rode out. His people asked him: Whither, O noble prince? But the prince kept silent and gave no answer.

The torrent comes rushing down from the mountaintop, then pours into the lake till it overflows. And there, there near the mountain, in the abandoned temple, the prince took up his dwelling! A month passed, the prince in his temple watching and waiting; and in that month the green of the growing fields deepened,

and was clothed in a mantle of bright and beautiful chrysolite:

And now a new month was nearly spent... and the prince did not stir from his place!...

And on one of the nights of that month the young prince caught the faint sound of a pipe, striking his ears like a far and distant echo.

Toward the torrent that ran down to the beautiful lake the prince made his way, for there lay the source of that poetic, mellow sound.

And there, seated among the lotus flowers, was a nymph, one of the longed-for brides of the sea. A "fragrant ray" streamed from a sirish blossom set in the lovely parting of her hair.

★

The prince dismounted from his steed and drew shyly near the nymph, asking her for that beautiful, fragrant flower. She raised her head and gazed at him, then drew the flower from her hair and held it out, saying: "It is yours." Then the prince asked her: "And what queen are you?" Signs of astonishment and denial showed on her face; then she burst into measured peals of laughter, like strains of music, and they rang in the young prince's heart. People had taken that laughter for pipes—how greatly they erred!

Then the prince mounted his steed, set her behind him, and rode off, pressing the pace! And as they rode upon the horse's back, the prince whispered in her ear: Cast off your veil, and tell me your name in full. She answered: "My name is Kakari." As for the veil, it was not lifted as he wished!

Here the prince said: "Your face—show it to me; I must behold it plainly, O beautiful queen." But she laughed peals of laughter like the first, and they fell upon his yearning heart with a beat and a ring.

Then they came to the old abandoned temple, and the news was proclaimed and spread abroad; and the aged king heard of the marriage of his son the prince, and sent to him soldiers and horses, elephants and chariots, in his abandoned temple!

★

And today, Kakari, you shall go to the palace. But she did not answer him; the answer was in her eyes. They were moist, brimming over with tears, weeping! Memory had stirred her and roused the sorrows in her soul. Then she said: "Nay, I cannot go, O beloved prince." But the din and clamor of the arriving company drowned her low, faint voice, and she went to the king's splendid palace!

The queen saw her and said: And what princess might this be? Her daughter saw her and said: For shame!! And one of the palace handmaids saw her and said: Have you looked at the princess's threadbare robe? No matter for her—she is one of those who have no need of clothes, for she is of the brides of the sea! But the prince silenced them in fierce anger and wrath, and said:

"The princess has come disguised in these rags."

But the voices of mockery, if they grew fainter, never ceased; or if they ceased, it was only for a while. And whenever the prince heard them he flared up in anger, because they did not share his feeling for this princess, daughter of the water.

The days passed, the prince as we have described him, his kin as we have told, and his wife unchanged in her state, never casting off her hated, detested veil.

But the prince hoped and waited, and for the present he contented himself with hope and waiting.

And as he sat with the "bride of the sea," passing the evening in talk with her, he asked her how long this hateful veil should be worn! She said: "There shall indeed be an appointed term for it, O prince—but wait a while now." He answered her: "Then let it be at the moon of the coming month, O beautiful princess!!"

The light of the full moon has come to its fullness in brightness and strength; now it fills the open wastes and washes the fields, and streams over the earth, flooding all that is upon it—even that chamber, and that bed!!

But where is Kakari?
Where is the beautiful princess, daughter of the sea?
...She has vanished, for the veil was lifted from her!!