ing before their nose. And whoever
knows this possesses treasure inexhaustible, and is master of the world.

[Footnote 38: The point of these interpretations depends on the number
five, which enters into all of them.]

[Footnote 39: There is a play here on _wama_, which means the _left
hand_ and _a beautiful woman_.]

V

And Babhru watched her intently, as she spoke, and when she ended, he
said suddenly and abruptly: Aranyani, thou art deceiving me. And she
said: How, O Babhru? And he said: Thou art this morning totally unlike
thyself: for thy customary melancholy is absent, and thou art strange,
and elated, and agitated, and as it seems to me, thou art telling me
idle stories, like one that listens all the while to something else, as
it were in a hurry merely to throw me off the scent, and hide from me a
secret, and amuse me like a child. And somehow or other, I feel as if
there were a wall between us, this morning, which was never there
before. Aye! I am sure, I know not how, thou art playing as it were a
part, to cast a mist before my eyes, and hide from me some agitation in
thy soul.

And Aranyani laughed, and blushed, and frowned, and finally she said:
Babhru, thy love is a disease, which fills thy head with nightmare, and
thy eyes with phantoms born of suspicion in thy soul. And he said: Alas!
thy own behaviour gives the lie to thee. Thou art not like thyself, and
I am right. And now, then, I will tell thee, in return for thy stories,
one myself; but unlike them, mine shall be very sad, and very true.

And Aranyani turned, and looked at him with anxiety in her eyes: and she
said: O Babhru, a story, and from thee! what is it? And he said: Dost
thou remember, a little while ago, when we wandered, the last time I saw
thee, in the wood? And she said: Yes. Then he said: Dost thou recollect,
how all at once I stopped thee, and turned back with thee, and left thee
so abruptly? And shall I tell thee, why? And Aranyani gazed at him,
turning a little paler, without speaking. Then he said: Know, that as we
went, I looked, and suddenly I saw before me in the bushes, what was
unseen by thee, the face of a man. And as I saw it, I shuddered, for his
eyes were fixed on thee, with astonishment, and evil admiration. And
instantly I turned, and took thee home, and left thee, and hurried back
to find him: but he was gone. I hunted everywhere, but he was gone. And
ever since, I cannot even sleep, for thinking of this man, and