ch as thou art. Any woman of
them all might do worse than fall in love with thee. And yet thy very
question shows, that in this matter of women, thou art little better
than a child, as indeed thou always wert. For even the Deity himself
can never tell what man any woman will prefer, or why: as how should
he, seeing that she does not even know, herself? And there never yet
existed any man whom some woman would not worship, let him be as ugly
as you please, or even for that very reason: and yet, let a man be a
very Kamadewa, woman after woman will pass him by, without even so
much as casting a glance at him out of the very corner of her eye. For
a woman's affection depends on her fancy, and that is like the wind,
that comes and goes and wavers how and where it will, without a reason
that anybody can discover. And it is sheer waste of time to sit and
wonder, whether thou art or art not a man that a woman might love.
Thou art both, or neither: for the only way to settle thy question is
to try. And she will, or she will not, of her own accord. And now, who
is she, this beauty who has set thee so knotty a problem to solve?

And I said with indifference: There is no such beauty; for all my
perplexity arose from the line of an old song: Nectar when she turns
towards thee: poison when she turns away.

And Haridasa turned sharp towards me, and looked at me intently for a
very long while, saying absolutely nothing. And we sat talking of
other things till he rose to go away. And then, at the very moment he
was mounting on his camel, he turned, and came back. And he said:
Listen! Thou art hiding from me something that maybe I could startle
thee by guessing: but no matter. Keep thy secret: but listen to a
piece of good advice, which may serve thee at a pinch. If ever thou
wouldst have a woman prize thee, never let her see that thou settest
any store by her. Treat her as a straw, and she will run after thee as
if thou wert a magnet: make thyself her slave, and she will hold thee
cheap, and discard thee for another. For women think meanly of their
sex, and utterly despise the man who places them above himself: since
in her heart every woman longs to be a man, bewailing her misfortune
in being born a woman, and praying all her life for one thing only, to
be born a man in another birth. And one thing above all she cannot
understand, how or why any man should make a fuss about any woman, as
all men do: which, just because she is not a ma