know not what he
meant. But I think that his heart broke within him, for after a day or
two, he died.

III

And then, like a flash of lightning, Aranyani started to her feet, with
a scream that rang through the wood, making the heart of Babhru suddenly
leap into his throat. And she threw up her arms, with agony, and all at
once, she sprang from her place, and darted like an arrow from a bow
towards the hut. And then again, almost instantly, as he stood gazing at
her in dismay, she turned sharp round, and began to run away in the
opposite direction like a deer. And as if waking from a dream, he began
to pursue her. And he overtook her, and laid his hand upon her shoulder,
as if to say: Whither art thou hastening without looking where to go?

But when she felt him touch her, she stopped suddenly and turned, and
looked at him, as if in the extremity of fear. And all at once, she
began to laugh, as if she was mad, with round eyes that were filled with
amazement and derision. And she exclaimed: Ha! Babhru, is it thou? But I
left thee behind me in the wood. Ha! thou also art deserted, and
rejected, and despised. Come, then, and let us escape very rapidly
together. And she seized him by the arm, and began to drag him violently
along. And she lowered her voice to a whisper, and began to speak, so
quickly, that the words stumbled over one another as they rushed out of
her mouth. And she said: Poor Babhru, thou art so ugly, that she could
not love thee in return, quite forgetting that she was herself so ugly
that nobody could love her either. But he was so beautiful, so
beautiful, so beautiful that she ran away and left thee in the lurch:
never even dreaming that all the other women were as silly as herself.
Ah! the other women, they were so many and so cruel. There were no other
women in the wood. Was it lonely, Babhru, in the wood, after she went
away? Poor ugly Babhru, all alone in the wood, while we were kissing
each other in the city. She used to see thee, Babhru, as she kissed him,
sitting all by thyself in the wood, and weeping by thyself. She loved
thee just a very little. Didst thou remember? But in the city, she
feared, she feared, to see thee suddenly appear. But very likely, thou
didst not know where she had gone. Thou wouldst have killed him, Babhru.
Why didst thou not run after her? But they would not have admitted thee,
poor Babhru, thou art so very ugly: and thou wouldst only have wandered,
going round and r