Page:Chandrashekhar (1905).djvu/23

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CHANDRASHEKHAR
13

time with the jingle of the ornaments on the arms, dances in unison; how dangling the garland of water-flowers pressing against the heart and swaying the little bird eager in swimming; how circling round and round the girl, peeping at her arms, throat, shoulders, and bosom, and pitching up waves, it dances in unison. He alone can tell us how the girl, letting the pitcher drift at the mercy of the gentle breeze, and sunk in water up to the chin, touches the water with her lips, crimson as the fruit of the balsam—apple, and sends it into her mouth and back again towards the sun, and how in that process the water makes a present of a hundred suns reflected in the falling spray. In the movement of the girl’s limbs the water dances up in jets and her heart also dances with the dancing of the ripple Both are equal—the water is volatile, and the heart of world-upsetting womanhood is volatile likewise. No impression is left on the water——is a young lady's heart anyway different?

The golden sunbeams dissolved in the dark waters of the tank and in a moment every thing was dark, only the palm-tops glistened like golden pennons.

“Sister,” said Sundari, “it is getting on to night; we should not tarry here any longer, come, let us go home.”

“No one is here,” said Shaibalini, “do sing a song dear, softly?”

“Go to, you sinner, come home.”

Shaibalini began to hum the scrap of a song :—

“Home, friend, again I shall not go.
My Cupid lo! is coming there.
Go home again I shall not, oh!”

“Perdition take you! your Cupid is waiting at home—why don’t you go there?”