Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/431

 me With modest loving eye, and the down standing erect on her cheeks told that love had begun to sprout. And after he had remained there a long time on the pretext of play, she at last tore herself away and went home, sending to me from the reverted corner of her eye a look that was a messenger of love. Then I went home, grieved at having to part with her, and throwing myself flat, I tossed up and down convulsively like a fish on dry land. I said to myself, " Shall I ever again behold her face, which is the Creator's storehouse of all the nectar of beauty? Happy are her companions* whom she looks at with that laughing eye, and talks freely to with that mouth." Engaged in such thoughts as these, I with difficulty got through that day and night, and on the second day 1 went to the house of my teacher. There my friend Vijayasena approached me courteously, and in the course of a confidential conversation, said to me joyfully, " My mother has heard from my sister Madirávatí that you are so great a friend of mine, and being full of love for you, she wishes to behold you; so, if you have any regard for me, come with me to our house; let it be adorned for us with the dust of your lotus-like foot." This speech of his was a sudden refreshment to me, as an unexpected heavy shower of rain is to a traveller in the desert. So I consented, and went to his house, and there I had an interview with his mother, and was welcomed by her, and remained there gladdened by beholding my beloved. Then Vijayasena, having been summoned by his father, left me, and the foster-sister of Madirávatí came to me, and said, bowing before me, " Prince, the princess Madirávatí trained up to maturity in our garden a jasmine creeper; and it has recently produced a splendid crop of flowers, which laugh and gleam with joyous exultation at being united with the spring. To-day the princess herself has gathered its buds, in defiance of the bees that settled on the flowers; and she has threaded them, like pearls, into a necklace, and she sends this to you her old friend as a new present." When that dexterous girl had said this, she gave me the gar- land, and with it leaves of the betel, together with camphor and the five fruits. So I threw round my neck the garland, which my beloved had made with her own hand, and I enjoyed exceeding pleasure, surpassing the joy of many embraces. † And putting the betel into my mouth, I said to that dear companion of hers, " What can I say more than this, my good girl? I have in my heart such intense love for your companion, that, if I