And she said,—
“Father, surely the Self is withered into nothing when this dearworthy One calls. What were life, death—anything in the Three Worlds, compared with beholding his blissful countenance?”
And he replied,—
“Even so it is”; and laid aside his book and fell into a deep musing on the Perfections of the Lord; and Radha sat beside him.
So that night her mother said timidly,—
“Lord of my life, the girl is possessed by the God. I fear for her life. In her sleep she speaks aloud of him and stretches empty arms to the air, moaning. The colour fades in her lips, her eyes are fixed on dreams. She has no peace. Should we not seek an earthly lover for her own, that she may forget this Divine that is all the world’s?”
And he replied sternly,—
“Woman, lift up a grateful heart to the God that this girl is not as the rest but consumed by the love of the Highest. I have a thought unknown to you. All will be better than well.”
And she desisted in great fear and obedience; but the very next evening was the story told of Radha—heart of the God’s heart, the Beautiful whose name she herself bore! And the girl listened in an ecstasy.
It was a very still evening, the stars shining large and near the earth, the moon a mere crescent, such as when Maheshwara wears it in his hair and dreams on the mountain-peaks of Himalaya. They sat in the wide veranda, supported on wooden pillars bowered in the blossoms of the purple bougainvillæa and the white and scented constellations of jasmine. The wide transparent blinds of split cane were raised to admit the faintly perfumed breath of the garden; and by the Pandit’s elbow, as he sat on his raised seat, burned a little oil lamp, that he might read the sacred pages.