You have taken a bath in the dark sea. You are once again veiled in a bride's robe, and through death's arch you come back to repeat our wedding in the soul. Neither lute nor drum is struck, no crowd has gathered, not a wreath is hung on the gate. Your unuttered words meet mine in a ritual unillumined by lamps. 27 I was walking along a path overgrown with grass, when suddenly I heard from some one behind, "See if you know me?" I turned round and looked at her and said, "I cannot remember your name." She said, "I am that first great Sorrow whom you met when you were young." Her eyes looked like a morning whose dew is still in the air. I stood silent for some time till I said, "Have you lost all the great burden of your tears?" She smiled and said nothing. I felt that her tears had had time to learn the language of smiles. "Once you said," she whispered, "that you would cherish your grief for ever." I blushed and said, "Yes, but years have passed and I forget." Then I took her hand in mine and said, "But you have changed." "What was sorrow once has now become peace," she said. 28 Our life sails on the uncrossed sea whose waves chase each other in an eternal hide-and-seek. It is the restless sea of change, feeding its foaming flocks to lose them over and over again, beating its hands against the calm of the sky. Love, in the centre of this circling war-dance of light and dark, yours is that green island, where the sun kisses the shy forest shade and silence is wooed by birds' singing. 29 AMA AND VINAYAKA AMA AND VINAYAKA _Night on the battlefield:_ AMA _meets her father_ VINAYAKA. AMA Father! VINAYAKA Shameless wanton, you call me "Father"! you who did not shrink from a Mussulman husband! AMA Though you have treacherously killed my husband, yet you are my father; and I hold back a widow's tears, lest they bring God's curse on you. Since we have met on this battlefield after years of separation, let me bow to your feet and take my last leave! VINAYAKA Where will you go, Ama? The tree on which you built your impious nest is hewn down. Where will _you_ take shelter? AMA I have my son. VINAYAKA Leave him! Cast never a fond look back on the result of a sin expiated with blood! Think where to go. AMA Death's open gates are wider than a father's love! VINAYAKA Death indeed swallows sins as the sea swallows the mud of rivers. But you are to die neither to-night nor here. Seek some solitary shrine of holy Shiva far from shamed kindred and all neighbours; bathe three times a day in sacred Ganges, and, while reciting God's name, listen to the last bell of evening worship, that Death may look tenderly upon you, as a father on his sleeping child whose eyes are still wet with tears. Let him gently carry you into his own great silence, as the Ganges carries a fallen flower on its stream, washing every stain away to render it, a fit offering, to the sea. AMA But my son---- VINAYAKA