genteel figure in any capacity I shall be obliged to withdraw myself completely from the world. You and I at any rate shall certainly not meet again,” and bending my injured finger as I turned to go, I recited the verse “As on bent hand I count the times that we have met, it is not one finger only that bears witness to my pain.” And she, all of a sudden bursting into tears … “If still in your heart only you look for pains to count, then were our hands best employed in parting.” After a few more words I left her, not for a moment thinking that all was over.
‘Days went by, and no news. I began to be restless. One night when I had been at the Palace for the rehearsal of the Festival music, heavy sleet was falling; and I stood at the spot where those of us who came from the Palace had dispersed, unable to make up my mind which way to go. For in no direction had I anything which could properly be called a home. I might of course take a room in the Palace precincts; but I shivered to think of the cheerless grandeur that would surround me. Suddenly I began to wonder what she was thinking, how she was looking; and brushing the snow off my shoulders, I set out for her house. I own I felt uneasy; but I thought that after so long a time her anger must surely have somewhat abated. Inside the room a lamp showed dimly, turned to the wall. Some undergarments were hung out upon a large, warmly-quilted couch, the bed-hangings were drawn up, and I made sure that she was for some reason actually expecting me. I was priding myself on having made so lucky a hit, when suddenly, “Not at home!”; and on questioning the maid I learnt that she had but that very night gone to her parents’ home, leaving only a few necessary servants behind. The fact that she had till now sent no poem or conciliatory message seemed to show some hardening of heart, and had already disquieted me.
