o
prevent its execution and the king's desire is gratified. He sees
Malavika, and finds her more beautiful even than her picture--her face
like the harvest moon, her bosom firm and swelling, her waist small
enough to span with the hand, her hips big, her toes beautifully
curved. She has never seen the king, yet loves him passionately. Her
left eye twitches--a favorable sign--and she sings: "I must obey the
will of others, but my heart desires you; I cannot conceal it." "She
uses her song as a means of offering herself to you," says the
viduschaka to the king, who replies: "In the presence of the queen her
love saw no other way." "The Creator made her the poisoned arrow of
the god of love," he continues to his friend after the performance is
over and they are alone. "Apply your mind and think out other plans
for meeting her." "You remind me," says the viduschaka, "of a vulture
that hovers over a butcher's shop, filled with greed for meat but also
with fear. I believe the eagerness to have your will has made you
ill." "How were it possible to remain well?" the king retorts. "My
heart no longer desires intimacies with any woman in all my harem. To
her with the beautiful eyes, alone shall my love be devoted
henceforth."

In the royal gardens stands an asoka tree whose bloom is retarded. To
hasten it, the tree must be touched by the decorated foot of a
beautiful woman. The queen was to have done this, but an accident has
injured her foot and she has asked Malavika to take her place. While
the king and his adviser are walking in the garden they see Malavika
all alone. Her love has made her wither like a jasmine wreath blighted
by frost. "How long," she laments, "will the god of love make me
endure this anguish, from which there is no relief?" One of the
queen's maids presently arrives with the paints and rings for
decorating Malavika's feet. The king watches the proceeding, and after
the maiden has touched the tree with her left foot he steps forward,
to the confusion of the two women. He tells Malavika that he, like the
tree, has long had no occasion to bloom, and begs her to make him
also, who loves only her, happy with the nectar of her touch.
Unluckily this whole scene has also been secretly witnessed by
Iravati, the second of the king's wives, who steps forward at this
moment and sarcastically tells Malavika to do his bidding. The
viduschaka tries to help out his confused master by pretending that
the meeting was accid