Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/445

 and brought her home. So you see that women in this world cannot endure the wounding of their affections.

" So you may be certain that this wife of the prince is angry on account of some trifling injury,and is hidden somewhere in this place; for she is under the protection of Śiva; and we must again search for her."

When Rumanvat said this, the sovereign of Vatsa said, " It must be so: for no misfortune can befall her, inasmuch as a heavenly voice said "This Madanamanchuká is an incarnation of Rati, appointed by the god to be the wife of Naraváhanadatta, who is an emanation of the god of Love, and he shall rule the Vidyádharas with her as his consort for a kalpa of the gods,' and this utterance cannot be falsified by the event. So let her be carefully looked for." When the king himself said this, Naraváhanadatta went out, though he was in such a miserable state.

But, however much he searched for her, he could not find her, so he wandered about in various parts of the grounds, like one distracted; when be went to her dwelling, the rooms with closed doors seemed as if they had shut their eyes in despair at beholding his grief; and when he went about in the groves asking for her, the trees, agitating their shoots like hands, seemed to say, " We have not seen your beloved." When he searched in the gardens, the sárasa-birds, flying up to the sky, seemed to tell him that she had not gone that way. And his ministers Marubhúti, Hariśikha, Gomukha, and Vasantaka wandered about in every direction to find her. In the meanwhile an unmarried Vidyádharí, of the name of Vegavatí, having beheld Madanamanchuká in her splendid and glorious beauty, deliberately took her shape, and came and stood alone in the garden under an aśoka-tree. Marubhúti saw her, as he was roaming about in search of the queen, and she seemed at once to extract the dart from his pierced heart. And in his joy he went to Naraváhanadatta, and said to him, " Cheer up, I have seen your beloved in the garden." When he said this, Naraváhanadatta was delighted, and immediately went with him to that garden. Then, exhausted with long bereavement, he beheld that semblance of Madanamanchuká, with feelings like those with which a thirsty traveller beholds a stream of water. And the moment he beheld her, the much afflicted prince longed to embrace her, but she, being cunning and wishing to be married by him, said to him, " Do not touch me now, first hear what I have to say. Before I married you, I prayed to the Yakshas to enable me to obtain you, and said, ' On my wedding-day I will make offerings to you with my own hand.' But, my beloved, when my wedding-day came, I forgot all about them. That enraged the Yakshas, and so they carried me off from this place. And they have just brought me here, and let me go, saying, ' Go and perform over again that ceremony of marriage, and