gone? Is she angry with me? Or is she playing hide-and-
seek with me, to see how I will take it?" So he roamed anxiously
all over the balcony during the rest of the night. But he did not find
her, though he searched as far as the garden.

Then he was overcome by his sorrow and sobbed convulsively.
"Oh, Beautiful, my darling! Fair as the moon! White as the
moonlight! Was the night jealous of your beauty; did she carry you
away? Your loveliness shamed the moon who refreshed me with
beams cool as sandal; but now that you are gone, the same beams
torment me like blazing coals, like poisoned arrows!"

And as Hariswami lamented thus, the night came to an end, but his
anguish did not end. The pleasant sun scattered the darkness, but
could not scatter the blind darkness of Hariswami's madness. His
pitiful lamentations increased a hundredfold, when the nightly
cries of the birds ended. His relatives tried to comfort him, but he
could not pluck up courage while his loved one was lost. He went
here and there, sobbing out: "Here she stood. And here she bathed.
And here she adorned herself. And here she played."

His relatives and friends gave him good advice. "She is not dead,"
they said. "Why should you make way with yourself? You will
surely find her. Pluck up courage and hunt for her. Nothing is
impossible to the brave and determined man." And when they
urged him, Hariswami after some days plucked up heart.

He thought: "I will give all my fortune to the Brahmans, and then
wander to holy places. Thus I will wear away my sins, and when
my sins are gone, perhaps I shall find my darling in my