the fountains of its baths, and there on the cold marble floors of the secluded spray-cooled rooms would sit the young Persian damsels, their hair dishevelled before bath, and, stretching their soft naked feet in the clear water of the reservoirs, would sing, to the tune of the guitar, the ghazals of their vineyards.
Now the fountains do not play, the songs have ceased, and the snowy feet no longer step gracefully on the snowy marble. It is now the vast and solitary quarters for cess-collectors like us, oppressed with solitude and destitute of female society. But Karim Khan, the old clerk of my office, warned me repeatedly not to take up my quarters there. "Pass the day there, if you like," said he, "but never stay there at night." I passed it off with a light laugh. The servants said that they would work till dark but go away at night. I gave my ready assent to it. The house had such a bad repute that even thieves would not venture near it after dark.
At first the solitude of that deserted palace weighed upon my chest like a nightmare, but I would stay out and work hard as long as possible, return home at night jaded and tired, go to bed and fall asleep.
But before a week had passed, the house began to exert upon me a weird fascination. It is difficult to describe it or to induce people to believe it, but I felt as if the whole house was like a living organism slowly and imperceptibly digesting me by the action of its stupefying gastric juice.
Perhaps the process had commenced as soon as I set my foot in the house, but I distinctly remember the day on which I first consciously felt its beginning.
It was then the beginning of summer and the market being dull I had no work on hand. A little before sunset I was sitting in an arm-chair near the water's edge below the steps. The Susta had shrunk and sunk low, a broad patch of the sands on the other side was glowing with the hues of the evening, and on this side the pebbles at the bottom of the clear shallow waters were glistening. There was not a breath of wind anywhere and the still air was laden with an oppressive scent from the spicy shrubs growing on the hills close by.
As the sun sank behind the hill tops a long dark curtain fell on the stage of day, as the intervening hills cut short the period of the mingling of light and shade at sunset. I thought of going out for a ride and was about to rise when I heard a footfall on the steps behind. I looked back, but there was none.
As I sat down again thinking it to be an illusion, I heard quite a number of steps, as if a large number of persons were rushing down the steps. A strange thrill of delight slightly tinged with fear passed through my frame, and though before my eyes there was not a figure, methought I saw a number of gay frolicsome girls coming down the steps to bathe in the Susta in that summer evening. Not a sound was there in the valley, in the river, in the palace, to break the silence of the evening, but I almost distinctly heard their gay and mirthful laugh, like the gurgle of a spring gushing forth in a hundred cascades, as they ran past me in quick playful pursuit of each other towards the river without noticing me at all. As they were invisible to me, so I was as it were invisible to them. The river was perfectly calm, but I almost distinctly felt that its still, shallow and clear waters were suddenly stirred by the splash of many an arm jingling with its bracelets, that the girls laughed and dashed and spattered water at one another and that the feet of the fair swimmers threw up the water in small pearly showers.
I felt a thrill at my heart—I cannot say whether the excitement was due exactly to fear or delight or curiosity. I felt a strong desire to see them more clearly, but naught could I see before me; I thought I could catch all that they said only if I strained my ears. But however hard did I strain them, I heard nothing but the chirping of the crickets in the woods. It seemed as if a dark curtain of 250 years was hanging before me and I would fain tremblingly lift a corner of it and peer through, though the grand assembly on the other side was completely enveloped in darkness.
The oppressive closeness of the evening was broken by a sudden gust of wind and the still surface of the Susta rippled and curled like the hair of a nymph, and the woods wrapt in the evening gloom gave forth a simultaneous murmur all at once and seemed to awaken from a black dream. Call it reality or dream, the momentary glimpse of that invisible mirage reflected
