d bosom was thy pillow on which I lulled thee to
slumber with the music of this very voice. Hast thou really forgotten
the nectar of my kiss? hast thou actually forgotten thy own insatiable
thirst? Ah! but if thou hast forgotten, I have not; and the innumerable
multitudes of thy too delicious kisses come back to me, singing in my
memory, and whispering in my soul like the lisping of the sea. Hark!
Dost thou not hear them also, those voices of a former birth?

[26] The reader should remember that in Sanskrit, _love_
and _recollection_ are the same word.

XI.

And as Aja gazed at her, stunned and almost overcome by the pathos of
her irresistible appeal, and as it were swept from his feet by the surge
of her passion, suddenly she seized his left hand with her right, and
stood, grasping it as if convulsively, with the other hand raised, and
bending her head as if to listen. And he listened, and lo! there sounded
in his ears a murmur resembling that of the sea, mixed with faint
strains of music, and echoes of indistinguishable singing voices coming
as it were from the ends of the earth. And a shudder ran through him, as
she turned, and looked at him as if in ecstasy, with eyes that saw
nothing, murmuring in an eager voice that chanted and charmed his ear
like the rushing of a stream: Dost thou hear the voices, calling thee
over to the other shore? For the sea is the sea of separation, and the
other shore is our former birth. Far away over the setting sun hides
the red land[27] of our old sweet love. And I can take thee back to it,
out of this dim and dingy wood. Only I can carry thee back to the land
beyond the sunset hill, where love is lying dead. Over the sea where
monsters lurk, and great pearls grow in sunless deeps, I can carry thee
back again to the land of long ago. Never a ship with a silken sail
could rock thee over across the waves so well as I will waft thee there
on the swell of this soft breast. Never a breeze from the sandal hill
could ferry thee over a silent sea so gently as will I, by breathing
into thy raptured ear tales of thy old forgotten past with fond and
fragrant lips. What! art thou still oblivious of that old delicious
birth? Dost thou never behold in dreams the paradise of our little hut,
and slake again thy raging thirst in a long forbidden kiss? Does she
never come back to thee, the Brahmani girl with a face like mine, with
lips that laughed and eyes that shone, and a mango flower