Srikanta
unbewailing'. His friends welcomed me with indistinct murmurs of emotion. I was a complete stranger to them, but they, in the condition they were in, stood in no need of formal introductions.
Piari, the baiji, who was singing, had been engaged from Patna for two weeks. The prince had to pay well for her services, but I must admit that his choice did credit to his taste and judgment. She was beautiful and sweet-voiced, and really understood her art. The song stopped as I entered. Then, after the inevitable interchange of polite remarks appropriate to the occasion, the prince requested me to call for the music that I liked. This embarrassed me at first but I soon realized that I alone possessed any ear for music in a company where all the rest were, so far as any aesthetic appreciation was concerned, no better than buffaloes.
Soon the baiji brightened up. It is possible of course to do almost anything when it is adequately paid for. But I could see that in this assembly of dolts it was really painful for her to give an exhibition of her art. She seemed quite relieved to get one person who could appreciate it at last. From then on until late that night she seemed to be employing all her art, her exquisite voice, her flowerlike beauty for my sake alone, keeping down with her liquid melodies the foul atmosphere of crude and ugly animalism that surrounded me. And then at last her song died away and stopped. Perhaps never in her life had she sung with a deeper emotion or finer sincerity than on that night; and I had listened as one entranced. When she stopped I could only say, 'Very fine.'
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