OLD MAN [_disdainfully_]. God of Love,-- How can He be God of Love if He dries up the stream of thy heart and blinds thy reason as the clouds blind the eyes of the Sun? Nay, thou liest. It is not the God of Love, but the God of thine insane self--self-love that makes thee rob thy mother of her only joy in life. I--yea, I will answer to God for thee. If, by coming to see thy mother, thou sinnest, I ask God to make me pay for thy sin. Come, obey thy father,--I will take the burden of thy sin, if sin it be. SHUKRA. Nay, each man pays for his sins as each man reaps the harvest of his own good deeds. None can atone for another. Ah, God! cursed be the hour when I was born. Cursed,-- OLD MAN [_angrily_]. Thou cursest thy birth? SHUKRA. Yea, to be born in this world of woe is a curse indeed. OLD MAN. Then curse thy tormented mind and thy desolate heart; curse not,-- SHUKRA. Nay, I curse the hour that saw me come to this earth of delusion and Maya. I do curse,-- OLD MAN. Thou dost dare curse the hour when thou wert born! Ah, vile sinner! To curse the hour of thy birth when thy mother is dying! God be my witness, he has incurred his father's wrath. Now,--no God can save thee. SHUKRA. Nay, nay,-- OLD MAN. Shukra. I, thy father, thy God in life, curse thee. Thou hast deprived thy mother of her child, and her death of its solace. Thou hast incurred the wrath of the Spirits of all thy departed ancestors. SHUKRA [_cries out_]. Not thus; not thus. [_Thunder and lightning, the whole sky is swept by the clouds._] OLD MAN. Not thus? Thus alone shall it be. Cursed be thou at night; cursed be thou by day; cursed be thou going; cursed be thou coming. Thou art cursed by the spirit of the race, by the spirit of God. [_Continued thunder and lightning._] SHUKRA [_falling at his father's feet_]. I beseech thee, my father,-- OLD MAN [_shrinking away_]. Touch me not. [_Going left._] Cursed art thou in Life and Death forever. SHUKRA. God!--Father, go not thus. OLD MAN. I am not thy father. [_Deafening and blinding thunder and lightning._] SHUKRA. Father-- OLD MAN [_going down the steps_]. Pollute not my hearing by calling me thy father. May the judgment of Indra be upon thee! [_He totters down out of sight, left, in anger and horror._] SHUKRA. Father, hear, oh hear! [_The rain comes down in a deluge; thunder and lightning. The rain blots everything out of sight. It pours in deep, dark sheets, through which the chains and sheets of lightning burn and run. After raining awhile, the sky clears. In the pale moonlight, Shukra is seen crouching near the Sacred plant. He is wet and disheveled. He slowly rises, swaying in exhaustion. Voices are heard below._]