[7] Durga or Parwati.

So as they bore him along, chattering on like jays and cranes, he said again to the women next him:  Fair ones, who are you, and where are you taking me, and why in the world are you so greatly delighted to see me?  And then at last, they replied:  O handsome stranger, ask nothing:  very soon thou shalt know all, for we are carrying thee away to our King.  And Aja said to himself:  Ha!  So, then, there is a King.  These women have, after all, a King.  Truly, I am fain to see him, this singular King of a female city.  And weak as he was, he began to laugh, as they all were laughing:  and so they all surged on like a very sea of laughter, through the gates of the city, and along the streets within, till they came at last to the King’s palace.  And all the way, Aja looked, and there was not to be seen so much as the shadow of a man in all the streets, which overflowed with women like the channel of a river in the rainy season.

Then the guards of the palace doors, who were also women, took him, and led him in; and all the women who had brought him crowded in behind.  And they mounted stairs, and after a while, they entered at last a great hall, whose pillars of alabaster were reflected in its dark green crystal floor, giving it the semblance of a silent pool in which a multitude of colossal swans had buried their necks beneath the water.  And there Aja found himself in the presence of the King.

And instantly, all the women screamed together:  Victory to thee, Maharaja! for here have we brought thee another husband for thy lovely daughter.  And Aja started.  And he said to himself:  Another husband!  How many husbands, then, has this strange King’s daughter got already?  Has she an insatiable thirst for husbands, whose number I am brought to swell?  So as he stood reflecting, the King leaped from his throne, and came towards him.  And as Aja looked at him, he was seized with amazement greater than before.  For the King resembled a very incarnation of the essence of grief, yet such, that it was difficult to behold him without laughter, as if the Creator had made him to exhibit skill in combining the two.  For his long thin hair was pure white, as if with sorrow, and his eyes were red, as if with weeping, and great hollow ruts were furrowed in his sunk and withered cheeks, as if the tears had worn themselves channels in which to run.  And though he was tall, he was bent and old, as if bowed down by a load of care.  And he tried, as if in vain, to smile, as he said in a mournful voice that quavered and cracked:  O man, whoever thou art, long have I waited for thee, and glad indeed I am to see thee, and inclined to dance like a peacock at the sight of a rainy cloud.