Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/499

 this, he at last said to her, " Agreed, my dear ! I will return on the first day of the mouth Chaitra, even if I have to leave my duty."

When he said this, his wife was at last induced to let him go; and so Śúrasena went to attend on the king in his camp. And his wife remained at home, counting the days in eager expectation, looking for the joyful day on which spring begins, on which her husband was to return. At last, in the course of time, that day of the spring-festival arrived, resonant with the songs of cuckoos, that seemed like spells to summon the god of love. The humming of bees drunk with the fragrance of flowers, fell on the ear, like the twanging of Cupid's bow as he strung it.

On that day Śúrasena's wife Sushená said to herself, " Here is that spring-festival arrived; my beloved will, without fail, return to-day. So she bathed, and adorned herself, and worshipped the god of Love, and remained eagerly awaiting his arrival. But the day came to an end and her husband did not return, and during the course of that night she was grievously afflicted by despondency, and said to herself, " The hour of my death has come, but my husband has not returned; for those whose souls are exclusively devoted to the service of another do not care for their own families." While she was making these reflections, with her heart fixed upon her husband, her breath left her body, as if consumed by the forest- fire of love. In the meanwhile Śúrasena, eager to behold his wife, and true to the appointed day, got himself, though with great difficulty, relieved from attendance on the king, and mounting a swift camel, accomplished a long journey, and arriving in the last watch of the night, readied his own house. There he beheld that wife of his lying dead, with all her ornaments on her, looking like a creeper, with its flowers full blown, rooted up by the wind. When he saw her, he was beside himself, and he took her up in his arms, and the bereaved husband's life immediately left his body in an outburst of lamentation. But when their family goddess Chandi, the bestower of boons, saw that that couple had met their death in this way, she restored them to life out of compassion. And after breath had returned to them, having each had a proof of the other's affection, they continued inseparable for the rest of their lives.

" Thus, in the season of spring, the fire of separation, fanned by the wind from the Malaya mountain, is intolerable to all creatures." When Gomukha had told this tale, Naraváhanadatta, thinking over it, suddenly became despondent. The fact is, in magnanimous men, the spirits, by being elevated or depressed, indicate beforehand the approach of good or evil fortune.*