64 LITERATURE. 



member of the family, and woe to him who treats her as an inferior being. Had War been 

 under thy care I should not now be ashamed of him, of her, of myself .... but 

 proceed and do not fear to find thy demand too great for my generosity." 



" Thou art a God ! Only a beneficent God could pour through all my being such a 

 refreshing breath of gratitude. Thou hast emboldened me to speak ; deign now to permit 

 me to speak freely; do not interrupt me until I shall have done, and then .... dis- 

 pose of me in the light of thy wisdom." 



" Granted," said Timu, a slight smile, nearly invisible, running through the white 

 forest of his beard. " Begin when thou wilt; thou art the wisest of all the women I have 

 ever known. By myself, thou art the first to ask for permission to speak; I have never 

 heard of any other who diil so. "I listen ..." and so saying he laid himself down 

 comfortably on a couch of clouds which was close by. 



Having refused to sit down in the presence of her Lord, Karooja, standing erect in her 

 old age, against the deep blue of infinitude, thus began : 



" I overheard what took place between God Timu and his wife Kari." Timu felt some- 

 what uncomfortable at such a beginning, and though he tried to wipe oft the blow by muttering 

 to himself. " QUI and young, all women enjoy that pastime," his face lost some of the 

 benevolence which it had shown before Karooja had begun. " Yes," continued the old nurse, 

 " It was the iate of my heart to l)e broken, woman's heart must be broken once, and I had 

 been too happy all my life long. The brave and heroic Timu, the God whose power has 

 vanquished all the other Gods of heaven, has forgotten that Justice and Truth, more even 

 than his valour, gave him the empire of the universe which he has so long enjoyed undis- 

 turbed owing to the affection and gratitude of his subjects. The time has come for Timu 

 to repent. Timu has been unjust, and injustice is of all sins the one which cannot be atoned 

 for. The bright sidereal world will refuse to be led by blindness. One who cannot rule him- 

 self is unworthy of ruling others. One who, having lived for innumerable ages in the bosom 

 of sweetness itself, and drunk of the inexhaustible love of Kari the bounteous, casts her off 

 in a tit of ill-temper, one who m his old age has the ble.ssing of seeing his last-born son bursting 

 like a flower in a magnihcent lusli of life, and who dislikes him for his generous, powerful, 

 irresistible force, that one is (loomed, his days are numbered, anger and revolt are useless. 

 Time, the father of all the Gods of the past, the present, and the future, has willed it so ; his 

 fixed decrees cannot be altered to please any God, however great and old he maybe; it would 

 stop the oscillation of the whole universe. Ripmt, Timu, recall the loving Kari, who only 

 left thee to prevent thy quiet from being disturbed by hearing about the wild doings of thy 

 son, doings which thou not only disapprovest, Init condemnest as unpardonable crimes, whereas 

 they are only the f)utbursts of youth, the heralds of a career which will be brighter than that 

 of any of his forefathers. God Timu, cease to hate that glorious son of thine : he is too strong 

 not to be kind ; lie came out of Kari's bosom ami could not be irreverent towards his father. 

 God Timu, let thine old age be blessed and protected by War the Radiant, as he is called by 

 the countless legions who blush when he looks at tjiem, and are jiregnant with love when they 

 see him shaking his mane of white ffre at the impenetrable regions of the dark, and thus 

 prepare for thy sweet and devoted Kari, that paragon of fecund mothers, the companion of 

 thy fight, the partner of thy glory, the one who has given thee a multitude of rulers for thine 

 immeasurable ein]nre ; prepare for her and for thyself a couch of repose from which thou 

 inayest witness, while passing slowly away, the glorious deeds of War the Radiant. I see 

 in thy looks and liy liiy gestures tiiat thou hast had to summon all thy Godly powers in order 

 to keep silence according to thy promise. I am now at thy mercy. Old as I am, I hope for 

 nothing better than to disappear and have my being blown into another mould ; I do not ask 

 for mercy; whatever may be thy will T am resigned ; I have rendiM-ed to thee the last of my 

 duties." 



" I last thou done? " grumbled Timu between his teeth, his eyes pale with anger, and 

 his limbs trcml)ling like the leaves of a cocoa-nut tree when the shaft ha.s received a shock, 

 1 havx'," said Karooja. 



