Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/361

 Now once on a time that Manivarman, longing to see his parents, went to his home in Támraliptí to visit them. After some days had passed, the hot season descended upon the land, impeding the journey of men absent from home with the sharp shafts of the sun's rays. The winds blew laden with the fragrance of the jasmine and trumpet-flower, and seemed like the hot* sighs of the cardinal points on account of the departure of spring. Lines of dust raised by the wind flew up to heaven, like messengers sent by the heated earth to hasten the approach of the clouds. The days passed slowly, like travellers exhausted by the severe heat, and longing for the shade of the trees. The nights, pale-gleaming with moonbeams, became exceedingly † reduced owing to the loss of the spring with all its happy meetings.

One day in that season, that merchant's daughter Anangamanjarí was sitting with her intimate friend in a lofty window of her house, white with sandal- wood ointment, and elegantly dressed in a thin garment of silk. While there, she saw a young Bráhman, named Kamalákara, the son of the king's chaplain, passing by, and he looked like the god of Love, risen from his ashes, going to find Rati. And when Kamalákara saw that lovely one overhead, like the orb of the moon, ‡ he was full of joy, and became like a cluster of kumuda-flowers. The sight of those two young persons became to one another, by the mighty command of Cupid, a priceless § fascination of the mind. And the two were overcome by passion, which rooted up their modesty and carried away by a storm of love-frenzy, which flung their minds to a distance. And Kamalákara's companion, as soon as he saw that his friend was love-smitten, dragged him off, though with difficulty, to his own house.

As for Anangamanjarí, she enquired what his name was, and having no will of her own, slowly entered the house with that confidante of hers. There she was grievously afflicted with the fever of love, and thinking on her beloved, she rolled on the bed, and neither saw nor heard anything. After two or three days had passed, being ashamed and afraid, unable to bear the misery of separation, thin and pale, and despairing of union with her beloved, which seemed a thing impossible, she determined on suicide. So, one night, when her attendants were asleep, she went out, drawn as it were, by the moon, which sent its rays through the window, like fingers, and made for a tank at the foot of a tree in her own garden. There she approached an image of the goddess Chandí, her family deity, that had