Lives of Alcyone

Life XLIV
This time Alcyone returned to his beloved motherland of India,
and also to the male sex, having been five times feminine.
He was born in a town called Narsingarh, near the Vindhya
Hills, the the year 3059 B.C. His name was Shivarshi, and he was
born into an old and noble family, though much reduced in the
world-poor but proud. The great traditions handed down from father
to son were the memory of its ancient greatness, and imposed the
necessity of maintaining the dignity and re-establishing the position.
It still retained a considerable estate, but had no money to cultivate
or stock it, and also money had been borrowed on it in some way.
Alcyone’ s father Taurus was a good man at heart, but stern
and proud; the mother Virago was rather weak and complaining,
though well-meaning. Their life was one of a certain amount of
privation because everything had to be sacrificed to the family pride.
The old profuse charities could not now be lavished, but some
scanty show of them must be; appearances must somehow be kept
up before the outer world, even though food ran short. They lived in
a rambling old castle, only a small part of which was really habitable,
most of it being desperately in need of repairs. Alcyone was the
second son, the eldest being Pollux; they were remarkably alike to
face, though absolutely different in disposition. As they grew up
Alcyone was deeply religious, reliable and painstaking, while Pollux
was careless and dissolute, and a source of much trouble to his
family.
205