ooking at me,
as it were, with reproach. For a ray of moonlight fell exactly on it
as it lay, as though to say: See! the moonlight falls not alone on
happy lovers, but on those that are deserted! And my heart smote me,
as I looked at it, and I exclaimed: Alas! my old love, thou art indeed
discarded for another; for I have not given thee a single thought,
ever since I saw her first. Bitter indeed must be the sorrow of one
that is cast, like thyself, aside! And then, I threw myself upon my
bed, forgetting instantly my lute and every other thing in the delight
of the anticipation of the coming day. And I slept all night, floating
as it were on a dark wave of the ocean of sweet expectation, and
smiling so to say in my sleep.

And when morning came, I arose, and went to and fro, singing aloud for
joy, and saying to myself: Now the moment of reunion approaches, and
the miserable fever of separation is nearing its end, for the sun has
arisen and is rushing to his home in the western mountain, and his
race, and my desolation, will finish exactly together. And now,
Chaturika is on her way, and will soon be here, looking like the dawn
of my delight in a delicious feminine form. And she will look at me
with her laughing eyes, and murmur, Sunset, exactly as before: and
exactly as before, I shall kiss her, and send her back to the Queen.
And so I waited eagerly, on the very tiptoe of expectation, with my
eyes fixed upon the door. But day slowly travelled on, and yet she
never came. And little by little, my delight slowly turned into
perplexity, and anxiety, till at last, as hour succeeded hour, each
longer than a _yuga_, my heart began to sink, lower and lower still,
and I became actually sick with the agony of my disappointment. For
the sun was indeed rushing down into the night, and yet she never
came. And time after time, I went to the door, and opened it, and
looked out, but no Chaturika was there, and nothing was to be seen but
the people in the street.

And when at last night actually fell, and found me still waiting, I
could endure no longer, but I threw myself upon my bed, and lay in a
stupor in the dark, abandoning all hope, and on the very verge of
crying like a child. And I said to myself: Is she ill, or is she dead,
or has she gone away, or what on earth can be the matter? Or can it
be, after all, that my messenger played me false, and never went? For
if she really got my message, long ago she would surely have sent
C