some one singing behind me, finishing the song:
"Alas, it came, the longed-for moment auspicious,
But I saw him not then, for heavy with sleep were my eyes.
I wreathed not his brow at the moment the gods had selected.
I woke from my sleep, and lo, dark and cold were the skies,
And faded the wreath. I hung on his neck the dead garland,
While my heart throbbed with pain and heavy my bosom with sighs.
Alas, we met
When moon and stars had faded,
Spring-time had fled and flowers withered lay."
The music sent a magic feeling through my being. I was absorbed by it. I looked not at the singer, but played till the sweet song was finished. When at last I did look there came upon me again that strange sensation when the past was merged in the present and the present in the past, when childhood and youth were blended, and I knew myself only as the little girl who had learned to love Chotu when he taught her at his uncle's Patshala. Was it really he? "Are you Chotu, are you Chotu?" Once again these words come to my lips, but, alas! again as before to remain unspoken.
