After the second day the Prince Vajramukut, being restless from grief at separation, fretted himself into a fever. Having given up writing, reading, drinking, sleeping, the affairs entrusted to him by his father, and everything else, he sat down, as he said, to die. He used constantly to paint the portrait of the beautiful lotus gatherer, and to lie gazing upon it with tearful eyes; then he would start up and tear it to pieces and beat his forehead, and begin another picture of a yet more beautiful face. At last, as the pradhan’s son had foreseen, he was summoned by the young Raja, whom he found upon his bed, looking yellow and complaining bitterly of headache. Frequent discussions upon the subject of the tender passion had passed between the two youths, and one of them had ever spoken of it so very disrespectfully that the other felt ashamed to introduce it. But when his friend, with a view to provoke communicativeness, advised a course of boiled and bitter herbs and great attention to diet, quoting the hemistich attributed to the learned physician Charndatta, A fever starve, but feed a cold, the unhappy Vajramukut’s fortitude abandoned him; he burst into tears, and exclaimed, “Whosoever enters upon the path of love cannot survive it; and if (by chance) he should live, what is life to him but a prolongation of his misery?” “Yea,” replied the minister’s son, “the sage hath said-- “The road of love is that which hath no beginning nor end; Take thou heed of thyself, man I ere thou place foot upon it. “And the wise, knowing that there are three things whose effect upon himself no man can foretell--namely, desire of woman, the dice-box, and the drinking of ardent spirits--find total abstinence from them the best of rules. Yet, after all, if there is no cow, we must milk the bull.” The advice was, of course, excellent, but the hapless lover could not help thinking that on this occasion it came a little too late. However, after a pause he returned to the subject and said, “I have ventured to tread that dangerous way, be its end pain or pleasure, happiness or destruction.” He then hung down his head and sighed from the bottom of his heart. “She is the person who appeared to us at the tank?” asked the pradhan’s son, moved to compassion by the state of his master. The prince assented. “O great king,” resumed the minister’s son, “at the time of going away had she said anything to you? or had you said anything to her?” “Nothing!” replied the other laconically, when he found his friend beginning to take an interest in the affair. “Then,” said the minister’s son, “it will be exceedingly difficult to get possession of her.” “Then,” repeated the Raja’s son, “I am doomed to death; to an early and melancholy death!” “Humph!” ejaculated the young statesman rather impatiently, “did she make any sign, or give any hint? Let me know all that happened: half confidences are worse than none.”