eet with a beating heart. And I
exclaimed: Too late! But what if it were not too late, after all?

And as I stood, thinking of it, struck into sudden agitation by my own
idea, hope glimmered in the darkness of my soul like the first faint
streak of rosy dawn at the end of a black night. And the dream of the
bare possibility of bringing back Tarawali with all her old
intoxicating sweetness almost took away my breath. And after a while,
I said to myself: Yes, indeed, he actually said, that she took a fancy
to me, even though it were only for a moment. And how could he have
known it, if she had not herself confessed it to Chaturika, from whom
alone he could have heard it, since very certainly he never learned it
from Tarawali herself? Aye! and was not Chaturika herself far sweeter
at the beginning, just as if she knew I was no ordinary lover, but one
with a little foothold in the Queen's heart? And if, then, I was ever
there, why could I not return? And if her fancy has gone to sleep,
could I not awake it? Can it be already so absolutely dead as never to
revive, with not a single spark among the ashes to be refanned into a
flame? How would it be, could I but manage to persuade her she was
utterly mistaken, in supposing that I was only a miserable victim of
her spell? How, if I could convince her that I valued all her
fascinations at a straw? Would she not at least be tempted to try them
all on me again, if only to test them and discover whether I was lying
or in very truth proof against all the power of her charm? And if only
she did, what then? For once she began, it would all depend on me,
whether she ever stopped any more.

And all at once, I uttered a shout of hope and exultation and
excitement, suddenly taking fire at the picture painted by my own
craving imagination. And I exclaimed: Ha! who knows? And at least, I
can try. And even if I fail, it cannot possibly be worse than it is
already, drowned as I am in misery without her: whereas, if I could
succeed! Ah! I would barter even emancipation for a single kiss! And O
that my courage may not fail, turning coward at the very first sight
of her again! For the struggle to appear indifferent, in such an ocean
of rapture, will be terrible indeed, since even now, the very thought
of it makes me tremble, being enough to make me fall weeping at her
feet. And now the sun is setting, and it is time to go: and in a very
little while, fate will decide, whether she and I are to d