Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/362

 been set up with much magnificence by her father, and she bowed before the goddess, and praised her, and said, " Though I have not obtained Kamalákara for a husband in this life, let him be my husband is a future birth !" When the impassioned woman had uttered these words in front of the goddess, she made a noose with her upper garment, and fastened it to an aśoka-tree. In the meanwhile it happened that her confidante, who was sleeping in the same room, woke up, and not seeing her there, went to the garden to look for her. And seeing her there engaged in fastening a noose round her neck, she cried out, " Stop ! stop !" and running up, she cut that noose which she had made. Anangamanjarí, when she saw that her confidante had come and cut the noose, fell on the ground in a state of groat affliction. Her confidante comforted her, and asked her the cause of her grief, and she at once told her, and went on to say to her, " So you see, friend Málatiká, as I am under the authority of my parents and so on, and have little chance of being united to my beloved, death is my highest happiness." While Anangamanjarí was saying these words, she was exceedingly tortured with the fire of Love's arrows, and being overpowered with despair, she fainted away. Her friend Málatiká exclaimed, " Alas ! the command of Cupid is. hard to resist, since it has reduced to this state this friend of mine, who was always laughing at other misguided women, who shewed a want of self-restraint.* " Lamenting in these words, she slowly brought Anangamanjarí round with cold water, fanning, and so on, and in order to allay her heat, she made her a bed of lotus-leaves, and placed on her heart a necklace cool as snow. Then Anangamanjarí, with her eyes gushing with tears, said to her friend, " Friend, the necklace and the other applications do not allay my internal heat. But do you by your cleverness accomplish something which will really allay it. Unite me to my beloved, if you wish to preserve my life." When she said this, Málatiká lovingly answered her, " My friend, the night is now almost at an end, but to-morrow I will make an arrangement with your beloved, and bring him to this very place. So in the meanwhile control yourself, and enter your house." When she said this, Anangamanjarí was pleased, and drawing the necklace from her neck, she gave it to her as a present. And she said to her, " Now go to your house, and early to-morrow go thence to the house of my beloved, and may you prosper !" Having dismissed her confidante in these words, she entered her own apartments. And early next morning, her friend Málatiká went, without being seen by any one, to the house of Kamalákara; and searching about in the