The child looked across to the woman for applause. “Pretty! Pretty!” called Zira. She had with her a cluster of fruit. She tossed this across to the child who caught it and laughed and danced about. “Something else! something else!” cried the child. Zira had a piece of bread that with the fruit was to have made her dinner. She threw this across also. The child caught it and ran away, looking back and laughing.
Zira, washing clothes with eyes that dazzled for weariness, with an aching and hungry body, felt within her being, away from the ache and glare, away from Gângya’s house, away from Zira washing clothes, the rise of something from level to level, power and faculty changing form....
In the forest, Madhava brought to Narayana’s hut firewood and water. He built the dawn fire, laying the sticks and the tinder, striking the flint and steel. All over the world was a mist, with a moist smell of earth and leaves. The mist began to part, showing ragged depths. Madhava stood up from the flame he had kindled. It crackled and sang, it made his garment shine, and his outstretched arm. Madhava remembered that he was Madhava, the son of Gângya, the husband of Zira. He remembered his childhood, his youth and manhood, in the village by the Jumuna. All that came back to him as though it were yesterday. Before him formed the face of Zira....
Narayana sat in contemplation under the sandal-wood. When the spirit returned, said Madhava to him, “Master, I fully remember this life. I am Madhava, son of Gângya, who lives in a village by the Jumuna. I was the bridegroom of Zira, but hardly were we married before I fell ill. In fever, I must have wandered from home. It all comes back to me.... Many to whom I am debtor think that I am dead. I must return to them.”
“Ropes unbroken,” said Narayana, “will bind and draw as is their nature to. You may not miss out your years as a householder. Go then, son, but put in a safe treasure room what you have learned.”
“I do not go,” said Madhava, “until comes one to take my place.”
In three months’ time there came a youth to take Madhava’s place. On the other side of the forest had lived a holy man who now laid down the body. The student who served him came, as the sage had directed, to attach himself to Narayana. “Now go!” said Narayana to Madhava. “As long as the ropes are there, answer to their drawing. But remember that there is a fire that you must feed with yourself.”
“I mean to remember,” said Madhava.
Madhava cut himself a staff and took a bottle for water, and said farewell to Narayana and to the chela from the other side of the forest, and became a traveller. As he went through the land he worked for food, and now he slept under some friendly roof, and now he slept by the roadside.
He had been given three years of clean living and of wisdom words, and that is enough to set the stalk to dreaming of flowers and fruit....