l waiting, and that I should delay
no longer. Leaving my report unfinished I rose, put on my sola hat, and
startling the dark, shady, desolate path with the rattle of my carriage,
I reached the vast silent palace standing on the gloomy skirts of the
hills.

On the first floor the stairs led to a very spacious hall, its roof
stretching wide over ornamental arches resting on three rows of massive
pillars, and groaning day and night under the weight of its own intense
solitude. The day had just closed, and the lamps had not yet been
lighted. As I pushed the door open a great bustle seemed to follow
within, as if a throng of people had broken up in confusion, and rushed
out through the doors and windows and corridors and verandas and rooms,
to make its hurried escape.

As I saw no one I stood bewildered, my hair on end in a kind of ecstatic
delight, and a faint scent of attar and unguents almost effected by age
lingered in my nostrils. Standing in the darkness of that vast desolate
hall between the rows of those ancient pillars, I could hear the gurgle
of fountains plashing on the marble floor, a strange tune on the guitar,
the jingle of ornaments and the tinkle of anklets, the clang of bells
tolling the hours, the distant note of nahabat, the din of the crystal
pendants of chandeliers shaken by the breeze, the song of bulbuls from
the cages in the corridors, the cackle of storks in the gardens, all
creating round me a strange unearthly music.

Then I came under such a spell that this intangible, inaccessible,
unearthly vision appeared to be the only reality in the world--and all
else a mere dream. That I, that is to say, Srijut So-and-so, the eldest
son of So-and-so of blessed memory, should be drawing a monthly salary
of Rs. 450 by the discharge of my duties as collector of cotton duties,
and driving in my dog-cart to my office every day in a short coat and
soia hat, appeared to me to be such an astonishingly ludicrous illusion
that I burst into a horse-laugh, as I stood in the gloom of that vast
silent hall.

At that moment my servant entered with a lighted kerosene lamp in his
hand. I do not know whether he thought me mad, but it came back to me
at once that I was in very deed Srijut So-and-so, son of So-and-so of
blessed memory, and that, while our poets, great and small, alone could
say whether inside of or outside the earth there was a region where
unseen fountains perpetually played and fairy guitars, struck by