[Interior of the Palace]
SUDARSHANA. Is the fight still going on?
SURANGAMA. As fiercely as ever.
SUDARSHANA. Before going out to the battle my father came to me
and said, "You have come away from one King, but you have drawn
seven Kings after you: I have a mind to cut you up into seven
pieces and distribute them among the princes. It would have been
well if he did so. Surangama!
SURANGAMA. Yes?
SUDARSHANA. If your King had the power to save me, could my
present state have left him unmoved?
SURANGAMA. My Queen, why do you ask me? Have I the power to
answer for my King? I know my understanding is dark; that is why
I never dare to judge him.
SUDARSHANA. Who have joined in this fight?
SURANGAMA. All the seven princes.
SUDARSHANA. No one else?
SURANGAMA. Suvarna attempted to escape--in secret before the
fight began--but Kanchi has kept him a prisoner in his camps.
SUDARSHANA. Oh, I should have been dead long ago! But, O King,
my King, if you had come and helped my father, your fame would
have been none the less! It would have become brighter and
higher. Are you quite sure, Surangama, that he has not come?
SURANGAMA. I know nothing for certain.
SUDARSHANA. But since I came here I have felt suddenly many a
time as if somebody were playing on a <i>vina</i> below my window.
SURANGAMA. There is nothing impossible in the idea that somebody
indulges his taste for music there.
SUDARSHANA. There is a deep thicket below my window--I try to
find out who it is every time I hear the music, but I can see
nothing distinctly.
SURANGAMA. Perhaps some wayfarer rests in the shade and plays on
the instrument.
SUDARSHANA. It may be so, but my old window in the palace comes
back to my memory. I used to come after dressing in the evening
and stand at my window, and out of the blank darkness of our
lampless meeting-place used to stream forth strains and songs and
melodies, dancing and vibrating in endless succession and
overflowing profusion, like the passionate exuberance of a
ceaseless fountain!
SURANGAMA. O deep and sweet darkness! the profound and mystic
darkness whose servant I was!
SUDARSHANA. Why did you come away with me from that room?
SURANGAMA. Because I knew he would follow us and take us back.
SUDARSHANA. But no, he will not come--he has left us for good.
Why should he not?
SURANGAMA. If he can leave us like that, then we have no need of
him. Then he does not exist for us: then that dark chamber is
totally empty and void--no vina ever breathed its music there--
none called you or me in that chamber; then everything has been a
delusion and an idle dream.
[Enter the DOORKEEPER]
SUDARSHANA. Who are you?
DOORKEEPER. I am the porter of this palace.
SUDARSHANA. Tell me quickly what you have got to say.
DOORKEEPER. Our King has been taken prisoner.