corn at arguments, and bribes, and barriers,
and dangers, and refusals, bent with a burning heart upon one thing
only, to reach its goal, dead or alive, no matter which. And when a
woman is an incarnation of that object, she moves the whole world with
her little finger, and is fatal, and raised into a category above all
ordinary rules. And Tarawali was moreover in a peculiar position, for
her husband had thrown her away of his own accord, so that she
actually belonged to nobody but herself, and injured herself alone, if
she could not always help yielding when a lover pushed her terribly
hard, by touching her heart like Shatrunjaya in the matter of his
dream. And very few indeed are the women who would not have done the
same, for he was a great musician, and a man among men, and very
young. And very rare indeed is the woman who is qualified to censure
her. For most women keep their wheel upon the track, either because
nobody ever tries to make them leave it, or simply for fear, either of
being punished, or of other women's tongues. And not one in a crore
could have resisted half the pressure that Tarawali had to bear, for
the very greatest of a winning woman's charms is exactly the one which
she possessed in supreme perfection, her soft and delicious
willingness to oblige and please, and place all the sweetness of her
personality at the absolute disposal of her lover, as Shatrunjaya
understood at the very first sight of her: a thing so utterly
irresistible, that when it is combined, as it was in her, with
intelligence masculine in its quality, its owner sweeps away every
man's reason like a chip in a flood. And there was a special reason
for Tarawali's intelligence.

And the goddess said: What was the reason? And the Moony-crested god
said: It was the necessary consequence of the actions of a former
birth. For in the birth before, she was a man, doomed by _gati_[40] to
become a woman in the next, by reason of a sin. And she said again:
What sin? Then said Maheshwara: Ask me another time, O thou cajoler:
for it is a long story, and now I have no more leisure: since I must
go and bestow the favour of my presence on a ceremony performed by a
pious devotee who has built me a new temple at Waranasi. And canst
thou guess who it is?

And the Daughter of the Snow said: How in the world can I guess his
name, of whom I never heard before?

And the Moony-crested god said: It is not a he, but a she: being no
other than Tarawali