nd himself
plunged, as it were, into the agitation of dreamy reminiscence, and said
within himself: Ha! now, somewhere or other, in this birth or another, I
have seen that miracle of a face before. And each went away with a heart
that was unwilling to depart, haunted as it were by dim desire for
something he knew not what stirring in the depths of his memory, that he
could not remember and yet had not forgotten, like the thirst for the
repetition of the sweetness of a bygone dream.[18] And all the more,
because his voice resembled a music that was playing a melody suggested
by the theme of his face. For it was low and soft, like that of a woman,
and yet deep, like that of a man: and it seemed to be made of sound
stolen from the pipe of Krishna, in order to enable it itself to steal
away the senses of the world: so that as he spoke, the listener
gradually grew bewildered by its tone, resembling a tired traveller,
falling little by little unconsciously to sleep as he sits in the murmur
of a mountain stream. And whenever he chose, he could cajole his
hearer, and make him do almost anything whatever, so hard was it to
resist the irresistible persuasion that lurked, like the caressing touch
of a gentle woman's hand, in the tone of that quiet and insinuating
voice.

[Footnote 15: _i.e._ _of extraordinary and surpassing beauty_. Pronounce
Uttirupa.]

[Footnote 16: The Hindoo Aphrodite.]

[Footnote 17: There is here an untranslateable play on _bimba_, the
fruit, (as we say, cherry lip) and _pratibimba_, a reflection in the
water.]

[Footnote 18: All this depends on an elaborate play on the double
meaning of _Smara_, a name for the God of Love, which means _memory_ as
well as _love_.]

And yet, all this beauty was nothing but a mask, and a lie: and so far
from expressing the nature of that soul which it covered and disguised,
it actually added evil to its original defect; and he resembled a
bamboo, looking like a very incarnation of loveliness and symmetry
outside, and singing in the wind, and yet absolutely hollow and without
a heart, within. For from the very moment he was born, he did exactly as
he pleased, and nothing else, being as capricious as the breeze that
blows only as it chooses. For beginning with his parents, nobody ever
crossed him, or placed any obstacle whatever in the path of his desires,
which grew up accordingly like a very rank jungle impervious to the
light, in which his will wandered like a wild you