Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/454

 But one day she forgot, and did not bring him the sweetmeat. And when the child asked for the sweetmeat, she said to him, " Sweetmeat indeed ! I know of no sweet, but my sweetheart." Then the child said to himself, " She has not brought me a sweetmeat, because she loves another better than me." So he lost all hope, and his heart broke. " So if I were over-eager to appropriate you whom I have long loved, and if Madanamanchuká, whom I consoled with the hope of a joyful reunion with you, were to hear of it, and lose all hope through me, her heart, which is as soft as a flower, would break.* It is this desire to spare her feelings, which prevents me from being so eager now for your society, before I have consoled her, though you are my beloved, dearer to me than life."

When Prabhávatí said this to Naraváhanadatta, he was full of joy and astonishment, and he said to himself, "Well! Fate seems to take a pleasure in perpetually creating new marvels, since it has produced Prabhávatí, whose conduct is so inconceivably noble." With these thoughts in his mind, the prince lovingly praised her, and said, " Then take me where that Madanamanchuká is." When Prabhávatí heard that, she took him up, and in a moment carried him through the air to the mountain Aśhádhapura. There she bestowed him on Madanamanchuká, whose body had long been drying up with grief, as a shower bestows fullness on a river.

Then Naraváhanadatta beheld that fair one there, afflicted with separation, thin and pale, like a digit of the new moon. That reunion of those two seemed to restore them to life, and gave joy to the world, like the union of the night and the moon. And the pair embraced, scorched with the fire of separation, and as they were streaming with fatigue, they seemed to melt into one. Then they both partook at their ease of luxuries suddenly provided in the night by the might of Prabhávatí's science. And thanks to her science, no one there but Madanamanchuká saw Naraváhanadatta. The next morning Naraváhanadatta proceeded to loose Madanamanchuká's one lock,† but she, overpowered with resentment against her enemy, said to her beloved, " Long ago I made this vow, ' That lock of mine must be loosed by my husband, when Manasavega is slain, but not till then; and if he is not slain, I will wear it till my death, and then it shall be loosed by the birds, or consumed with fire.' But now you have loosed it, while this enemy of mine is still alive; that vexes my soul. For