"Pratap! in this world, you alone know how to live for others—we are humanitarians in name only. In your next life, you will be entitled to the eternal bliss of heaven."
After a brief pause, Ramananda Swami continued, "Listen to me, dear Pratap! I have been able to read through your mind—even the conquest of the whole universe cannot be favourably compared with your glorious triumph over your passions—you used to love Shaibalini, most dearly."
Ramananda Swami's last words went straight into Pratap's heart. They infused a new spirit into his inert and almost lifeless body and he roared out, as if, a lion had been roused from sleep,
"What will you understand, you are an ascetic! What man is there in this world who can fathom the love I bear to Shaibalini? Who will appreciate with what devotion and constancy I have loved Shaibalini during these long sixteen years? I am not attached to her with any evil motive—my love is nothing but a desire to sacrifice my life for the sake of the object of my love. Throughout day and night, this feeling has been flowing through my veins with every particle of my blood—no man has yet, or could ever, come to know of it—why have
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