Then at last I was obliged to give up my silent but nonetheless passionate hope and bid my boatman steer for the nearest ghat.
After a sleepless night, I remained in my room, and in order to occupy and relieve my mind, which was utterly possessed by her image, till I should again be able to hasten to the public gardens, I sought with the aid of brush and colour to transfer to the tablet on my wall, her fair lineaments as I last beheld them, when, dancing, she struck the golden ball. I was unable to eat a morsel; for even as the Çakora with its exquisitely tender song lives only upon the rays of the moon, so did I live solely upon the rays that emanated from her whose face was as the moon in its fairness, though these came to me but through the mists of memory; yet I hoped, and that confidently, they would this evening in the pleasure gardens refresh and vivify me with all their glow and radiance. Alas! I was again doomed to disappointment.
Afterwards Somadatta wished to take me to the gaming-tables, for he was as passionately addicted to dice as Nala, after the demon Kali had entered into him. I feigned tiredness.
Instead, however, of going home, I betook myself again to the ghats and out on the river; but, to my unspeakable grief, with no better result than on the preceding evening.
V
The Magic Portrait
As I knew that for me sleep was not to be thought of, I did not undress at all that evening, but sat down at the head of my bed on the grass mat intended for devotional exercises, and spent the night there in pious and fitting fashion, filled with fervent love thoughts, and absorbed in prayer to the lotus-bearing Lakshmi, her celestial prototype; but the early morning sun found me again at work with brush and colour.
Several hours had flown away as if on wings while I was thus occupied, when Somadatta entered the room. I had but just time, when I heard him coming, to thrust the panel and painting materials under the bed. I did it quite involuntarily.
Somadatta took a low chair, sat down beside me, and looked at me with a smile on his face.
“I perceive of a truth,” he said, “that our house is to have the honour of being the spiritual birthplace of a holy man. Thou fastest as do only the most strenuous ascetics, and dost refrain from the luxurious bed. For neither on thy pillows nor on thy mattress is there to be seen the faintest impress of thy body and the white sheet is without a crease. Nevertheless, although as the result of thy fasting thou art already grown quite slim, thy body is not yet entirely devoid of weight, as the curious may see from this grass matting on which thou hast obviously spent the night in prayer and meditation. But I find that, for so holy a tenant, this room looks somewhat too worldly. Here on thy toilet table the salve jar—untouched, it is true; the box of sandal powder; the flagon of scented water and the dish with bark of the citron tree and betel! There on the wall, the wreath of yellow amaranths, and the lute, but—where is the panel which usually hangs on that hook?”
In my embarrassment I was unable to frame any answer to this question, and he meanwhile discovered the missing board, and drew it forth from under the bed.
“Why! why! what wicked and crafty wizard!” he cried, “has caused the fascinating picture of a maiden playing ball to appear by magic on the board which I myself hung quite empty on yonder hook?—plainly, with evil intent, to assail the embryo ascetic and tempt him at the very beginning of his career, and thus to confound sense and thought in him. Or, after all, can it be that this is the work of a god?—for we know, as a fact, that the gods fear the omnipotence of the great ascetics; and, commencing as thou hast done, the Vindhya Mountains might well begin to belch smoke at the fervency of thy penitence; yea, owing to the accumulation of thy merit, the kingdom of the heavenly deities might almost begin to totter. And now I also know which deity it is! It is certainly he whom we name the Invisible, the god with the flower darts, who bears a fish in his banner—Kama, the god of love, from whom thou hast thy name, as I now remember. And—heavens, what do I see?—this is Vasitthi, the daughter of the rich goldsmith!”
As I thus, for the first time, heard the name of my beloved, my heart began to beat violently and my face grew pale from agitation.
“I see, my dear friend,” this incorrigible jester went on, “that the idea of the magic of Kama hath given thee a great fright, and, truly, we shall be obliged to do something in order to avert his anger. In such a case, however, I feel that woman’s counsel is not to be despised. I shall show this picture to my beloved Medini, who was also of those at the dance and who is, furthermore, the foster-sister of the fair Vasitthi.”
With that, he was about to go away, taking the panel with him. Perceiving, however, what the rogue had in mind, I bade him wait, as the picture still lacked an inscription. I mixed some beautiful red of a brilliant hue and in a few minutes had written, in the daintiest of script, a verse of four lines which related in simple language the incident of the golden ball. The verse, when read backwards, stated that the ball
