Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/48

 ing heart-broken in the woods, uses to the asoka; but on her lips, the flexible Çloka verses of the poet seemed to grow without effort and to blossom ever more richly, like a young shoot transplanted to hallowed soil—

Then she looked on me with love-filled eyes, in whose tears the moonlight was clearly mirrored, and spoke with lips that were drawn and quivering—

"When thou art far away, and dost recall to mind this scene of our bliss, then imagine to thyself that I stand here and speak thus to this noble tree. Only then I shall not say 'Nala,' but 'Kamanita.

I locked her in my arms, and our lips met in a kiss full of unutterable feeling.

Suddenly there was a rustling in the summit of the tree above us. A large, luminous red flower floated downward and settled on our tear-bedewed cheeks. Vasitthi took it in her hand, smiled, hallowed it with a kiss, and gave it to me. I hid it in my breast.

Several flowers had fallen to the ground in the avenue of trees. Medini, who sat beside Somadatta, on a bench not far from us, sprang to her feet, and, holding up several yellow asoka blossoms, came towards us, calling out—

"Look, sister! The flowers are beginning to fall already. Soon there will be enough of them for your bath."

"You don't mean those yellow things! Vasitthi may not, on any account, put them into her bath-water," ex-