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Updated: May 27, 2025
And she said: Aye! she was a pearl, and a swan, and I know not what beside, and now she is absolutely nothing, like a broken pot. And the golden boat has perished, never so much as reaching even the shadow of the sea. Babhru, it was a lie: it was a miserable boat, all full of holes, that sank into the cold black water like a stone.
O Babhru, why didst thou not die also, before they brought her back? Chamu, Chamu, did Atirupa give you Aranyání, to kiss her dead body on the sand? And all at once, Babhru began to tremble like a leaf. And he exclaimed: Aranyání, Aranyání! And suddenly she fell down and began to kiss his feet.
And while he looked from her to Chamu, and from Chamu back again to her, Chamu got back upon his horse, and all those riders rode away. But Babhru stood exactly where he was, like a picture painted on a wall, hardly heeding their departure, gazing at Aranyání.
And then at last, as if satisfied that he was actually gone, she turned away. And she murmured to herself: Alas! poor Babhru, hadst thou but known how near thy fear came to the very truth, I doubt whether I could ever have got thee to go away at all.
For he did not steal thy beauty, but only borrowed her, for a little while, all with her own consent. And now he has returned her by my hands: and here she is. And he turned, and Babhru looked, and lo! they lifted Aranyání from a horse, and set her on the ground.
And Babhru said: Alas! no. But at least, if thou art not yet my wife, thou art not any other man's: nor, if I can prevent it, shalt ever be. And she said: Babhru, thou art utterly intolerable, and a tyrant: and at this rate, I shall without a doubt die unmarried, if all the sons of Kings who may come to seek me in the wood are to be slain by thee.
Then said Aranyání: O Bruin, it may be, the attainment of thy desire might sorely disappoint thy expectation, after all: since many times, those who have risen to the very summit of the mountain of their hopes have found themselves miserably deceived, and fallen suddenly to the very bottom of despair with a crash, like Chandana. And Babhru said: Who was Chandana?
Come away into the wood where it is dark. And she dragged him by the hand, and she whispered: Babhru, I have a thing to ask of thee. Wilt thou kill me with thy knife in the darkness? for otherwise I must abandon the body of my own accord. And Babhru started, and he exclaimed, with horror: Aranyání, art thou mad? What! should I kill thee, I, kill thee, who art my very soul?
And what then will be my fate, if I follow him in spite of all, only to discover, that just as I left Babhru in the lurch, so I myself shall be abandoned, it may be, for some other woman's sake? And at the thought, she shuddered, and grew cold all over, and turned suddenly paler than a waning moon. And Atirupa saw it, and was puzzled, understanding nothing of what was passing in her soul.
And the new moon waxed, and waned: and every day the sun rose up as usual, and travelled slowly on, till he sank at eve, over the sand, beyond the western hill. And then at last, there came a day, when just as he was sinking, it happened that Babhru sat alone, watching him as he went down, at that very same place in the wood where he had parted last from Aranyání, the day she disappeared.
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