II
As she grew older, the story widened and deepened with her years. But as she came to girlhood, her anxious mother, Sita Bai, ventured with trembling to doubt if it were well to draw her heart yet closer to the radiant manhood of the young God; for now the story is to be mystically interpreted and read by the light of the wisdom of the old and learned.
“Was there not Mira Bai, who went mad for the love of him and could not leave his image or his temple, and dreamed of his sweetness night and day until she wasted to a shadow and died? And, my lord, is not his great temple as Jagannath, Lord of the World, but ten miles from us at the great town of Chaki; and is it not filled with bands of devidasis—the dancing girls? Would you have your daughter as one of them—sacred but—vile?”
She caught the word back on her lips and looked about her in terror. Then added passionately:—
“O my lord, is it well to kindle such a passion in her heart, and she little more than a child?”
“Better be possessed by that love than by the follies and wickednesses that haunt the hearts of women to their ruin and ours. Woman, I know what I do. Be silent!” was all his answer.
So she was silent, and daily the story went onward and filled the soul of the girl. For now, as Krishna grew to manhood, beauty came upon him, irresistible, heart-compelling, the world’s Desire, and on the banks of Jumna was sung the Song of Songs—the Lover, dark and glorious, to whom the souls of all the women of Brindaban, whether wife or maid, cling passionately, forgetful of self and of all but him. And the deepest symbol of the adoration of Krishna is the passion of man for woman and woman for man.
“Walk warily here, my child, if you would understand,” said the Pandit; “for we move among pitfalls made by the mind of man fettered to his senses—the mind of man, that coin bearing the double superscription of spirit and flesh. Yet the story is plain for him who has ears to hear!”
And Radha, speechless, with dark eyes filled with adoring love, listened—listened, with no heart for aught else.
“Tell me more, more!” she said.