Their tight bodices, covered with embroidery, were
so short that between them and the sari there was a good quarter
of a yard of bare skin. The dark, bronze-coloured waists of these
well-shaped Women were boldly presented to any one's examination
and reflected the lights of the room. Their beautiful arms and
their ankles were covered with bracelets. At the least of their
movements they all set up a tinkling silvery sound, and the little
sister-in-law, who might easily be mistaken for an automaton doll,
could hardly move under her load of ornaments. The young grandmother,
our hostess, had a ring in her left nostril, which reached to the
lower part of the chin. Her nose was considerably disfigured by
the weight of the gold, and we noticed how unusually handsome she
was only when she took it off to enable herself to drink her tea
with some comfort.
The dances of the nautch girls began. Two of them were very pretty.
Their dancing consisted chiefly in more or less expressive movements
of their eyes, their heads, and even their ears, in fact, of the
whole upper part of their bodies. As to their legs, they either
did not move at all or moved with such a swiftness as to appear
in a cloud of mist.
After this eventful day I slept the sleep of the just.
- - - - -
After many nights spent in a tent, it is more than agreeable to
sleep in a regular bed, even if it is only a hanging one. The
pleasure would, no doubt, have been considerably increased had I
but known I was resting on the couch of a god. But this latter
circumstance was revealed to me only in the morning, when descending
the staircase I suddenly discovered the poor general en chef,
Hanuman, deprived of his cradle and unceremoniously stowed away
under the stairs. Decidedly, the Hindus of the nineteenth century
are a degenerate and blaspheming race!
In the course of the morning we learned that this swinging throne
of his, and an ancient sofa, were the only pieces of furniture in
the whole house that could be transformed into beds.
Neither of our gentlemen had spent a comfortable night. They slept
in an empty tower that was once the altar of a decayed pagoda and
was situated behind the main building. In assigning to them this
strange resting place, the host was guided by the praiseworthy
intention of protecting them from the jackals, which freely penetrate
into all the rooms of the ground floor, as they are pierced by
numberless arches and have no door and no window frames.
