: and then, not being able to endure waiting,
she went off with impatience to fetch the Moony-crested god, to show
him what she had done, and revel in his applause. And the moment that
her back was turned, Nandi[3] happened to come along: and just as he
reached the elephant, which owing to his abstraction he never noticed,
taking it for a mere hump, formed at random by the snowdrifts, he was
suddenly seized with an irresistible desire to roll. And so, over he
rolled, and went from side to side, throwing up his legs into the air.
And as luck would have it, exactly at that very moment the Daughter of
the Snow returned, pulling Maheshwara along eagerly by the hand. And
she looked and saw Nandi, rolling about on the flat snow just where
she had left her elephant, which was gone. And she uttered a loud cry,
and stood, aghast with rage and disappointment. And she opened her
mouth to curse the author of the mischief, and was on the very verge
of saying: Sink into a lower birth, thou insolent destroyer! when
Maheshwara stopped her in the very act, guessing her intention, by
putting his hand upon her mouth.[4] And he exclaimed: Say nothing
rash, O angry one, for Nandi did not do it on purpose, after all. And
a good servant does not deserve cursing, for an accidental blunder.

And then, Parwati burst into tears. And she exclaimed: Out of my
sight, thou clumsy one! for I cannot bear to see thee. And she turned
away, sobbing. And Maheshwara looked at her out of the corner of his
eye, and he said to himself: Now, then, I must do something to console
her for the elephant, and bring back her good humour. For ill humour
in a woman spoils all. And presently he said: Come now, enough! for
Nandi has gone off in disgrace, sufficiently punished by banishment
for a time, and very sad to have been the unwitting cause of thy
distress. And let us roam about awhile, in search of something new,
that may help to obliterate recollection, and change thy gloom into a
smile.

And he took the goddess in his arms, and set her as she sobbed upon
his knee, and rose from the peak of Kailas, and shot like a falling
star down into the plain below. And coming to Haradwara, where Ganga
issues from the hills, he began to follow the holy stream down its
course, gliding along just above it like a cloud that was unable to
refrain from watching its own beautiful reflection in the blue mirror
of her wave. And so they went, until at last they reached an island
that