sh,
look at thyself through my eyes, and thy wish is attained, since I am
myself the very mirror provided thee by the Creator for that very
purpose. And so learn, by my mouth, that thy spell is something in
thee that resembles the peace of a forest pool. And even to-night, all
the while we have been together, thou hast been, and art, so curiously
quiet, like the breast of a swan, bathing in the water of passion and
emotion without even getting wet, and like the snow of Kailas, never
melting even in the sun of noon.

And again she looked at me with curiosity: and she sighed, as if to
dismiss what she could not comprehend. And she said: See! the moon has
climbed high, and is gazing on the lotuses, and I am tired of
standing, and the time has come to give thee thy surprise. And she
drew me away by the hand along the terrace, and down its marble steps,
till we came to a great tree that hung down over the water like an
umbrella, leaning from the bank of the pool, so that nothing could be
seen through its wall. And she took me and turned me with my face to
the water, and she said: Stand here absolutely still, and do not look
round, and I will bring thee thy surprise. And then she went quickly
into the trees.

And I stood waiting, exactly as I was told, listening to her steps as
she went away, and wondering where she was going, and what she was
meditating, and what the surprise was, when it came. And so as I
stood, I said to myself: Can I really be awake, or is it all only a
long dream? For I seem to have been dreaming ever since I saw her
first. And time slipped away, and still I stood, straining my ears for
the sound of her steps returning, and dying to look round, but never
looking, and haunted by a feeling that was almost terror, saying to
myself: Why is she away so long, and what if she never returns at all?

And so as I stood, with my soul in my ears, turned as it were behind
me, suddenly there came round the tree upon the water a great boat of
the colour of a lotus leaf, turned up at each end like the neck of a
swan. And it came straight towards me, and as it reached me, its
boatman stood up, looking at me with a smile.

And I started, and all at once I laughed aloud, for amazement and
delight: and even so, I hardly knew her to be herself. For she had
cast away all her deity, and turned herself into a _cheti_, resembling
a fragrant essence of midnight without a moon, clothed with absolute
simplicity in soft dead bl