The Fugitive Part 3

18

The evening beckons, and I would fain follow the travellers who sailed in the last ferry of the ebb-tide to cross the dark.

Some were for home, some for the farther sh.o.r.e, yet all have ventured to sail.

But I sit alone at the landing, having left my home and missed the boat: summer is gone and my winter harvest is lost.

I wait for that love which gathers failures to sow them in tears on the dark, that they may bear fruit when day rises anew.

19

On this side of the water there is no landing; the girls do not come here to fetch water; the land along its edge is s.h.a.ggy with stunted shrubs; a noisy flock of _saliks_ dig their nests in the steep bank under whose frown the fisher-boats find no shelter.

You sit there on the unfrequented gra.s.s, and the morning wears on. Tell me what you do on this bank so dry that it is agape with cracks?

She looks in my face and says, "Nothing, nothing whatsoever."

On this side of the river the bank is deserted, and no cattle come to water. Only some stray goats from the village browse the scanty gra.s.s all day, and the solitary water-hawk watches from an uprooted _peepal_ aslant over the mud.

You sit there alone in the miserly shade of a _s.h.i.+mool,_ and the morning wears on.

Tell me, for whom do you wait?

She looks in my face and says, "No one, no one at all!"

20

KACHA AND DEVAYANI

KACHA AND DEVAYANI

_Young Kacha came from Paradise to learn the secret of immortality from a Sage who taught the t.i.tans, and whose daughter Devayani fell in love with him._

KACHA

The time has come for me to take leave, Devayani; I have long sat at your father's feet, but to-day he completed his teaching. Graciously allow me to go back to the land of the G.o.ds whence I came.

DEVAYANI

You have, as you desired, won that rare knowledge coveted by the G.o.ds;--but think, do you aspire after nothing further?

KACHA

Nothing.

DEVAYANI

Nothing at all! Dive into the bottom of your heart; does no timid wish lurk there, fearful lest it be blighted?

KACHA

For me the sun of fulfilment has risen, and the stars have faded in its light. I have mastered the knowledge which gives life.

DEVAYANI

Then you must be the one happy being in creation. Alas! now for the first time I feel what torture these days spent in an alien land have been to you, though we offered you our best.

KACHA

Not so much bitterness! Smile, and give me leave to go.

DEVAYANI

Smile! But, my friend, this is not your native Paradise. Smiles are not so cheap in this world, where thirst, like a worm in the flower, gnaws at the heart's core; where baffled desire hovers round the desired, and memory never ceases to sigh foolishly after vanished joy.

KACHA

Devayani, tell me how I have offended?

DEVAYANI

Is it so easy for you to leave this forest, which through long years has lavished on you shade and song? Do you not feel how the wind wails through these glimmering shadows, and dry leaves whirl in the air, like ghosts of lost hope;--while you alone, who part from us, have a smile on your lips?

KACHA

This forest has been a second mother to me, for here I have been born again. My love for it shall never dwindle.