SUDARSHANA.
What a relief, Surangama, what freedom! It is my defeat that has brought me freedom. Oh, what an iron pride was mine! Nothing could move it or soften it. My darkened mind could not in any way be brought to see the plain truth that it was not the King who was to come, it was I who ought to have gone to him. All through yesternight I lay alone on the dusty floor before that window—lay there through the desolate hours and wept! All night the southern winds blew and shrieked and moaned like the pain that was biting at my heart; and all through it I heard the plaintive “Speak, wife!” of the nightbird echoing in the tumult outside! . . . It was the helpless wail of the dark night, Surangama!
SURANGAMA.
Last night’s heavy and melancholy air seemed to hang on for an eternity—oh, what a dismal and gboomy night!
SUDARSHANA.
But would you believe it—I seemed to hear the soft strains of the vina floating through all that wild din and tumult! Could he play such sweet and tender tunes, he who is so cruel and terrible? The world knows only my indignity and ignominy—but none but my own heart could hear those strains that called me through the lone and wailing night. Did you too, Surangama, hear the vina? Or was that but a dream of mine?
SURANGAMA.
But it is just to hear that same vina’s music that I am always by your side. It is for this call of music, which I knew would one day come to dissolve all the barriers of love, that I have all along been listening with an cager ear.
SUDARSHANA.
He did at last send me on the open road—I could not withstand his will. When I shall find him, the first words that I shall tell him will be, “I have come of my own will—I have not awaited your coming.” I shall say, “For your sake have I trodden the hard and weary roads, and bitter and ceaseless has been my weeping all the way.” I shall at least have this pride in me when I meet him.
SURANGAMA.
But even that pride will not last. He came before you did—who else could have sent you on the road?
SUDARSHANA.
Perhaps he did. As long as a sense of offended pride remained with me, I could not help thinking that he had left me for good; but when I flung my dignity and pride to the winds and came out on the common streets, then it seemed to me that he too had come out: I have been finding him since the moment I was on the road. I have no misgivings now. All this suffering that I have gone through for his sake, the very bitternesss of all this is giving me his company. Ah! yes, he has come—he has held me by the hand, just as he used to do in that chamber of darkness, when, at his touch, all my body would start with a sudden thrill: it is the same, the same touch again! Who says that he is not here?—Surangama, can you not see that he has come, in silence and secret? . . . Who is that there? Look, Surangama, there is a third traveller of this dark road at this hour of the night.
SURANGAMA.
I see, it is the King of Kanchi, my Queen.
SUDARSHANA.
King of Kanchi!
SURANGAMA.
Don’t be afraid, my Queen!