Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/627

 tumult is on that account; listen to the story connected with her." Then that man related the strange story of Rúpavatí's marriage with Keśața and of her adventure with the Rákshasa, and then continued as follows:

"Then that old Bráhman, having tricked Keśața, went on his way, taking with him Rúpavatí for his son: but nobody knew where Keśața had gone after marrying her. And Rúpavatí, not seeing Keśața on the journey, said, * Why do I not see my husband here, though all the rest of the party are travelling along with me?" When the old Bráhman heard that, he shewed her that son of his, and said to her, ' My daughter, this son of mine is your husband; behold him.' Then Rúpavatí said in a rage to the old man there, 'I will not have this ugly fellow for a husband; I will certainly die, if I cannot get that husband, who married me yesterday.' " Saying this, she at once stopped eating and drinking; and the old Brahman, through fear of the king, had her taken back to her father's house. There she told the trick that the old Brahman had played her, and her father, in great grief, said to her, ' How are we to discover, my daughter, who the man that married you, is?' Then Rúpavatí said, ' My husband's name is Keśața, and he is the son of a Bráhman named Deśața in Páțaliputra; for so much I heard from the mouth of a Rákshasa.' When she had said this, she told her father the whole story of her husband and the Rákshasa. Then her father went and saw the Rákshasa lying dead, and so he believed his daughter's story, and was pleased with the virtue of that couple. " He consoled his daughter with hopes of reunion with her husband, and sent his son to Keśața's father in Páțaliputra, to search for him. And after some time they came back and said, ' We saw the householder Deśața in Páțaliputra. But when we asked him where his son Keśața was, he answered us with tears, " My son Keśața is not here; he did return here, and a friend of his named Kandarpa came with him; but he went away from here without telling me, pining for Rúpavatí"— When we heard this speech of his, we came back here in due course.' " When those sent to search had brought back this report, Rúpavatí said to her father, ' I shall never recover my husband, so I will enter the fire; how long, father, can I live here without my husband?' She went on saying this, and as her father has not been able to dissuade her, she has come out to-day to perish in the fire. And two maidens, friends of hers, have come out to die in the same way; one is called Śŗingáravatí and the other Anurágavatí. For long ago, at the marriage of Rúpavatí, they saw Keśața and made up their minds that they would have him for a husband, as their hearts were captivated by his beauty. This is the meaning of the noise which the people here are making."

When Kandarpa heard this from that man, he went to the pyre which