"Patience in achieving. Strength in holding. Wisdom in—not demanding unless the woman offers and gives sign."
And she went out into the garden that stretched back of the palace in wild, scented profusion, bunching its majestic, columnar aisles of banyan figs as a foil for the dainty, pale green tracery of the nim-trees, the quivering, crimson domes of the peepals bearded to the waist with gray and orange moss, where the little, bold-eye gekko lizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumed fretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead with burnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom she had summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veil slipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressed her red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child.
The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night, says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion.
You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon.
Love's play is worship.
Love's achievement is a rite.
Love's secret is never read.
Always around the corner is another light, a new light—golden, twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp.
Reach to it—as you never will—and there is the end of the chain, the end of the tale.
LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!
"You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he saw Vasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse.
The girl smiled.
"It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I."
"I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love."
"As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in his hand."