[The KING OF KANYA KUBJA, father of SUDARSHANA, and his MINISTER]
KING OF KANYA KUBJA. I heard everything before her arrival.
MINISTER. The princess is waiting alone outside the city gates
on the bank of the river. Shall I send people to welcome her
home?
KING OF KANYA KUBJA. What! She who has faithlessly left her
husband--do you propose trumpeting her infamy and shame to every
one by getting up a show for her?
MINISTER. Shall I then make arrangements for her residence at
the palace?
KING OF KANYA KUBJA. You will do nothing of the sort. She has
left her place as the Empress of her own accord--here she will
have to work as a maid-servant if she wants to stay in my house.
MINISTER. It will be hard and bitter to her, Your Highness.
KING OF KANYA KUBJA. If I seek to save her from her sufferings,
then I am not worthy to be her father.
MINISTER. I shall arrange everything as you wish, Your Highness.
KING OF KANYA KUBJA. Let it be kept a secret that she is my
daughter; otherwise we shall all be in an awful trouble.
MINISTER. Why do you fear such disaster, Your Highness?
KING OF KANYA KUBJA. When woman swerves from the right path,
then she appears fraught with the direst calamity. You do not
know with what deadly fear this daughter of mine has inspired
me--she is coming to my home laden with peril and danger.
X
[Inner Apartments of the Palace. SUDARSHANA and SURANGAMA]
SUDARSHANA. Go away from me, Surangama! A deadly anger rages
within me--I cannot bear anybody--it makes me wild to see you so
patient and submissive.
SURANGAMA. Whom are you angry with?
SUDARSHANA. I do not know; but I wish to see everything
destroyed and convulsed in ruin and disaster! I left my place on
the throne as the Empress in a moment's time. Did I lose my all
to sweep the dust, to sweat and slave in this dismal hole? Why
do the torches of mourning not flare up for me all over the
world? Why does not the earth quake and tremble? Is my fall but
the unobserved dropping of the puny bean-flower? Is it not more
like the fall of a glowing star, whose fiery blazon bursts the
heavens asunder?
SURANGAMA. A mighty forest only smokes and smoulders before it
bursts into a conflagration: the time has not come yet.
SUDARSHANA. I have thrown my queen's honour and glory to the
dust and winds--but is there no human being who will come out to
meet my desolate soul here? Alone--oh, I am fearfully, terribly
alone!
SURANGAMA. You are not alone.
SUDARSHANA. Surangama, I shall not keep anything from you. When
he set the palace on fire, I could not be angry with him. A
great inward joy set my heart a-flutter all the while. What a
stupendous crime! What glorious prowess! It was this courage
that made me strong and fired my own spirits. It was this
terrible joy that enabled me to leave everything behind me in a
moment's time. But is it all my imagination only? Why is there
no sign of his coming anywhere?
SURANGAMA. He of whom you are thinking did not set fire to the
palace--it is the King of Kanchi who did it.
SUDARSHANA. Coward! But is it possible? So handsome, so
bewitching, and yet no manhood in him! Have I deceived myself
for the sake of such a worthless creature? O shame! Fie on me!
... But, Surangama, don't you think that your King should yet
have come to take me back? [SURANGAMA remains silent.] You think
I am anxious to go back? Never! Even if the King really came I
should not have returned. Not even once did he forbid me to come
away, and I found all the doors wide open to let me out! And the
stony and dusty road over which I walked--it was nothing to it
that a queen was treading on it. It is hard and has no feelings,
like your King; the meanest beggar is the same to it as the
highest Empress. You are silent! Well, I tell you, your King's
behaviour is--mean, brutal, shameful!
SURANGAMA. Every one knows that my King is hard and pitiless--no
one has ever been able to move him.
SUDARSHANA. Why do you, then, call him day and night?
SURANGAMA. May he ever remain hard and relentless like rock--may
my tears and prayers never move him! Let my sorrows be ever mine
only--and may his glory and victory be for ever!
SUDARSHANA. Surangama, look! A cloud of dust seems to rise over
the eastern horizon across the fields.
SURANGAMA. Yes, I see it.
SUDARSHANA. Is that not like the banner of a chariot?
SURANGAMA. Indeed, a banner it is.
SUDARSHANA. Then he is coming. He has come at last!
SURANGAMA. Who is coming?
SUDARSHANA. Our King--who else? How could he live without me?
It is a wonder how he could hold out even for these days.
SURANGAMA. No, no, this cannot be the King.
SUDARSHANA. "No," indeed! As if you know everything! Your King
is hard, stony, pitiless, isn't he? Let us see how hard he can
be. I knew from the beginning that he would come--that he would
have to rush after me. But remember, Surangama, I never for a
single moment asked him to come. You will see how I make your
King confess his defeat to me! Just go out, Surangama, and let
me know everything. [SURANGAMA goes out.] But shall I go if he
comes and asks me to return with him? Certainly not! I will not
go! Never!
[Enter SURANGAMA]
SURANGAMA. It is not the King, my Queen.
SUDARSHANA. Not the King? Are you quite sure? What! he has
not come yet?
SURANGAMA. No, my King never raises so much dust when he comes.
Nobody can know when he comes at all.