And when the funeral obsequies had been completed, there came a day, soon after, when Atirupa was sitting in his palace, with some of his attendants round him, gazing at his own image, that was reflected in a tiny mirror set on his finger in a ring. And he was plunged in the contemplation of himself, shadowed by a melancholy that arose, not from grief at the loss of his parents, but dejection caused by the gloom of the period of mourning: and as he sat, he said within himself: I am losing time, and growing old, and letting the opportunity slip by me unimproved, and this bloom of mine is wasted, and, as it were, lying idle, for want of its proper mirror, which is not this ring, but a pair of new eyes, which would look back at my own, not as this does, vacantly and without a soul, but lit up by the soft lustre of passion and admiration. And all at once, he started up, and exclaimed aloud: What! do ye all sit easily, when I am dying for lack of recreation? Know ye not that even the jackal is in danger, when the lion is left without a prey? Even now I am debating with myself, whether it would not be a good thing to have one of you chosen by lot, and trampled by an elephant, to be a lesson to the rest. And then, as they all gazed at him with anxiety, each fearing for himself, he looked at their confusion, as if with enjoyment, and said again: What, with so many idle all about me, am I, forsooth, to sit waiting, for fortune to come to me, like an _abhisarika_, of her own accord? Nay, it were well enough, could I even see coming towards me an _abhisarika_ of any kind. But the women of this city grow, as it seems, older and more ugly every day: for I have skimmed its cream, and now nothing is left but curd, and dregs, and whey, and like the ocean after its churning, all its treasures are exhausted, leaving nothing but crocodiles and monsters, and bitterness, and brine.