Page:Mashi and Other Stories.djvu/75

Rh trust, simplicity, and girlhood's love,—black pupils,—thick dark eyelashes,—a calm fixed gaze. Suddenly some unseen force squeezed my heart in an iron grip, and it throbbed with intense pain.

I returned to my house, but the pain clung to me. Whether I read, wrote, or did any other work, I could not shake that weight off my heart; a heavy load seemed to be always swinging from my heart-strings.

In the evening, calming myself a little, I began to reflect: "What ails me?" From within came the question: "Where is your Surabala now?" I replied: "I gave her up of my free will. Surely I did not expect her to wait for me for ever."

But something kept saying: "Then you could have gotten her merely for the asking. Now you have not the right to look at her even once, do what you will. That Surabala of your boyhood may come very close to you; you may hear the jingle of her bracelets; you may breathe the air embalmed by the essence of her hair,—but there will always be a wall between you two."

I answered: "Be it so. What is Surabala to me?"

My heart rejoined: "Today Surabala is nobody Day