its own sad silence? Were these parts of a cruel conspiracy plotted in your
Paradise? Was all for the sake of access to my father's heart?--and after
success, were you, departing, to throw some cheap gratitude, like small
coins, to the deluded door-keeper?


KACHA

What profit were there, proud woman, in knowing the truth? If I did wrong
to serve you with a passionate devotion cherished in secret, I have had
ample punishment. This is no time to question whether my love be true or
not; my life's work awaits me. Though my heart must henceforth enclose a
red flame vainly striving to devour emptiness, still I must go back to that
Paradise which will nevermore be Paradise to me. I owe the Gods a new
divinity, hard won by my studies, before I may think of happiness. Forgive
me, Devayani, and know that my suffering is doubled by the pain I
unwillingly inflict on you.


DEVAYANI

Forgiveness! You have angered my heart till it is hard and burning like a
thunderbolt! You can go back to your work and your glory, but what is left
for me? Memory is a bed of thorns, and secret shame will gnaw at the roots
of my life. You came like a wayfarer, sat through the sunny hours in the
shade of my garden, and to while time away you plucked all its flowers and
wove them into a chain. And now, parting, you snap the thread and let the
flowers drop on the dust! Accursed be that great knowledge you have
earned!--a burden that, though others share equally with you, will never be
lightened. For lack of love may it ever remain as foreign to your life as