Scene 19

XIX

[A Road. SUDARSHANA and SURANGAMA]

SUDARSHANA. What a relief, Surangama, what freedom! It is my
defeat that has brought me freedom. Oh, what an iron pride was
mine! Nothing could move it or soften it. My darkened mind
could not in any way be brought to see the plain truth that it
was not the King who was to come, it was I who ought to have gone
to him. All through yesternight I lay alone on the dusty floor
before that window--lay there through the desolate hours and
wept! All night the southern winds blew and shrieked and moaned
like the pain that was biting at my heart; and all through it I
heard the plaintive "Speak, wife!" of the nightbird echoing in
the tumult outside! ... It was the helpless wail of the dark
night, Surangama!

SURANGAMA. Last night's heavy and melancholy air seemed to hang
on for an eternity--oh, what a dismal and gboomy night!

SUDARSHANA. But would you believe it--I seemed to hear the soft
strains of the vina floating through all that wild din and
tumult! Could he play such sweet and tender tunes, he who is so
cruel and terrible? The world knows only my indignity and
ignominy--but none but my own heart could hear those strains that
called me through the lone and wailing night. Did you too,
Surangama, hear the vina? Or was that but a dream of mine?

SURANGAMA. But it is just to hear that same vina's music
that I am always by your side. It is for this call of music,
which I knew would one day come to dissolve all the barriers of
love, that I have all along been listening with an eager ear.

SUDARSHANA. He did at last send me on the open road--I could not
withstand his will. When I shall find him, the first words that
I shall tell him will be, "I have come of my own will--I have not
awaited your coming." I shall say, "For your sake have I trodden
the hard and weary roads, and bitter and ceaseless has been my
weeping all the way." I shall at least have this pride in me
when I meet him.

SURANGAMA. But even that pride will not last. He came before
you did--who else could have sent you on the road?

SUDARSHANA. Perhaps he did. As long as a sense of offended
pride remained with me, I could not help thinking that he had
left me for good; but when I flung my dignity and pride to the
winds and came out on the common streets, then it seemed to me
that he too had come out: I have been finding him since the
moment I was on the road. I have no misgivings now. All this
suffering that I have gone through for his sake, the very
bitternesss of all this is giving me his company. Ah! yes, he
has come--he has held me by the hand, just as he used to do in
that chamber of darkness, when, at his touch, all my body