Urvasi, tortured, like the king, by love and doubt, suppresses her bashfulness and asks one of her friends to go with her to get her pearl necklace which she had left entangled in the vine. "Then you are hurrying down, surely, to see Pururavas, the king?" says the friend; "and whom have you sent in advance?" "My heart," replied Urvasi. So they fly down to the earth, invisible to mortals, and when they see the king, Urvasi declares that he seems to her even more beautiful than at their first meeting. They listen to the conversation between him and the viduschaka. The latter advises his master to seek consolation by dreaming of a union with his love, or by painting her picture, but the king answers that dreams cannot come to a man who is unable to sleep, nor would a picture be able to stop his flood of tears. "The god of love has pierced my heart and now he tortures me by denying my wish." Encouraged by these words, but unwilling to make herself visible, Urvasi takes a piece of birch-bark, writes on it a message, and throws it down. The king sees it fall, picks it up and reads:
"I love you, O master; you did not know, nor I, that you burn with love for me. No longer do I find rest on my coral couch, and the air of the celestial grove burns me like fire."
"What will he say to that?" wonders Urvasi, and her friend replies, "Is there not an answer in his limbs, which have become like withered lotos stalks?" The king declares to his friend that the message on the leaf has made him as happy as if he had seen his beloved's face. Fearing that the perspiration on his hand (the sign of violent love) might wash away the message, he gives the birch-bark to the viduschaka. Urvasi's friend now makes herself visible to the king, who welcomes her, but adds that the sight of her delights him not as it did when Urvasi was with her. "Urvasi bows before you," the apsara answers, "and sends this message: 'You were my protector, O master, when a demon offered me violence. Since I saw you, god Kama has tortured me violently; therefore you must sometime take pity on me, great king!'" And the king retorts: "The ardor of love is here equally great on either side. It is proper that hot iron be welded with hot iron." After this Urvasi makes herself visible, too, but the king has hardly had time to greet her, when a celestial messenger arrives to summon her hastily back to heaven, to her own great distress and the king's.
Left alone, the king wants to seek consolation in the message written on the birch-bark. But to their consternation, they cannot find it. It had dropped from the viduschaka's hand and the wind had carried it off. "O wind of Malaya," laments the king,
"you are welcome to all the fragrance breathing from the flowers, but of what use to you is the love-letter you have stolen from me? Know you not that a hundred such consolers may save the life of a love-sick man who cannot hope soon to attain the goal of his desires?"
In the meantime the queen and her maid have appeared in the background. They come across the birch-bark, see the message on it, and the maid reads it aloud. "With this gift of the celestial girl let us now meet her lover," says the queen, and stepping forward, she confronts the king with the words: "Here is the bark, my husband. You need not search for it longer." Denial is useless; the king prostrates himself at her feet, confessing his guilt and begging her not to be angry at her slave. But she turns her back and leaves him. "I cannot blame her," says the king; "homage to a woman leaves her cold unless it is inspired by love, as an artificial jewel leaves an expert who knows the fire of genuine stones." "Though Urvasi has my heart," he adds, "yet I highly esteem the queen. Of course, I shall meet her with firmness, since she has disdained my prostration at her feet."
The reason why Urvasi had been summoned back to heaven so suddenly was that Indra wanted to hear a play which the celestial manager had rehearsed with the apsaras. Urvasi takes her part, but her thoughts are so incessantly with the king that she blunders repeatedly. She puts passion into lines which do not call for it, and once, when she is called on to answer the question, "To whom does her heart incline?" she utters the name of her own lover instead of the one of similar sound called for in the play. For these mistakes her teacher curses her and forbids her remaining in heaven any longer. Then Indra says to the abashed maiden: "I must do a favor to the king whom you love and who aids me in battle. Go and remain with him at your will, until you have borne him a son."
Ignorant of the happiness in store for him, the king meanwhile continues to give utterance to his longings and laments. "The day has not passed so very sadly; there was something to do, no time for longing. But how shall I spend the long night, for which there is no pastime?" The viduschaka counsels hope, and the king grants that even the tortures of love have their advantage; for, as the force of the torrent is increased a hundredfold if a rock is interposed, so is the power of love if obstacles retard the blissful union. The twitching of his right arm (a favorable sign) augments his hope. At the moment when he remarks: "The anguish of love increases at night," Urvasi and her friend came down from the air and hover about him. "Nothing can cool the flame of my love," he continues,
"neither a bed of fresh flowers, nor moonlight, nor strings of pearls, nor sandal ointment applied to the whole body. The only part of my body that has attained its goal is this shoulder, which touched her in the chariot."
At these words Urvasi boldly steps before the king, but he pays no attention to her. "The great king," she complains to her friend, "remains cold though I stand before him." "Impetuous girl," is the answer, "you are still wearing your magic veil; he cannot see you."