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 Bráhmani girl with a face like mine, with
lips that laughed and eyes that shone, and a mango flower in her hair?
Say, dost thou never dream of her? And she shook his arm with frenzy,
and exclaimed: Ha! wake from thy magic sleep, and tear away the curtain
that hides me from thy blinded soul. I will, I will awake thee. I will
not be forgotten. And all at once, she burst into a passion of tears.
And she reeled, as though about to fall, and tottered, and threw
herself, sobbing hard, against his breast.
[27] The Sanskrit _dwípa_ has exactly the same connotation
as our islands of the Blest, and like them it is placed in
the setting sun.
And while she spoke, Aja stood, like one pushed to the very edge of a
precipice, pale as death, and breathing hard, spellbound. And then at
last, when she threw herself upon his breast, again a shudder ran
through all his limbs. And as if her touch had shattered to pieces the
last fragment of his resolution, he caught her around the waist with the
one arm that was free. And with tears in his own eyes, he stammered, as
if in the extremity of desperation, hardly knowing what he said: Alas! I
have been harsh to thee. O lovely browed beauty, cease to weep. Why, O
why, did I not meet thee sooner by only a single day?