e it,
that I was not born Narasinha! for he has cut me from my happiness,
and stolen from me the very fruit of being born at all!

And in my frenzy, I seized her in my arms once more, desperately
clutching, as it were, at the bliss escaping from my reach in her form.
And I said to her, as I held her tight: Tell me, had Narasinha never
lived, could I have been to thee what he is now? And she extricated
herself, very gently, from my arms, and stood back, looking at me with
meditative eyes; and after a while, she said doubtfully, yet with a
little smile on her lips: Perhaps. But I am not sure. Thou art a little
over-bearing. And yet I like thee, somehow, but I love thee not at all.
And yet again, it may be, that had I met thee sooner, I might have
looked at thee with other eyes. And I bear thee no malice, if indeed
thou art a criminal, for any of thy crimes, since I was their occasion.
But what after all is the use of supposition as to what might be were
Narasinha away, since as it is, he is here, an obstacle in the way, not
to be surmounted by any means whatever? And so, thy case is hopeless.
And I tried to make thee understand, in vain: since thou wilt not take
denial or listen to any reason. And I went to such a length, out of
kindness, as to give thee one single evening, packed as full as it could
hold with all the sweetness I could think of, giving myself up, so to
say, to the insatiable thirst of thy arms, and thy craving desire to be
caressed and kissed by only me, and embodying thy dream, and turning
myself into an instrument of that nectar of feminine intoxication for
which thou wert ready to die, and putting myself without reserve
absolutely at thy disposal, only to find my kindness miserably requited
by ingratitude and undeserved reproaches, and even menaces and threats.
And as I said, to-night, when by underhand contrivance thou didst force
thyself upon me, I never punished thee at all, as many another queen
might do, but took pity on thy desolation and forgave and overlooked all
thy insolence, without being in the very least deceived by thy fustian
beginning, which I easily discerned to be a _ruse_, to enable thee
perhaps to steal back into my favour, all founded on a misinterpretation
of the woman that I am. For had I really been what people say, and what,
listening to them, thou didst imagine me, thy foolish plan might perhaps
have been successful, but I am very different indeed. And yet, even so,
thy part w