'"'"It was in thy presence that I sternly rebuked Pundarika, and after that speech I left him in anger and went to another place, leaving my task of gathering flowers. After thy departure, I remained apart a short time, (302) and then, becoming anxious as to what he was doing, I turned back and examined the spot from behind a tree. As I did not see him there, the thought arose within me, 'His mind was enslaved by love, and perchance he followed her; and now that she is gone, he has regained his senses, and is ashamed to come within my sight; or he has gone from me in wrath, or departed hence to another place in search of me.' Thus thinking, I waited some time, but, troubled by an absence I had never since my birth suffered for a moment, I again thought, 'It may be that, in shame at his failure in firmness, he will come to some harm; for shame makes everything possible; he must not, then, be left alone.' With this resolve, I earnestly made search for him. But as I could not see him, though I sought on all sides, made anxious by love for my friend, I pictured this or that misfortune, and wandered long, examining glades of trees, creeper bowers among the sandal avenues, and the banks of lakes, carefully glancing on every side. (303) At length I beheld him in a thicket of creepers near a lake, a very birthplace for spring, most fair, and in its close growth appearing to be made wholly of flowers, of bees, of cuckoos, and of peacocks. From his entire absence of employment, he was as one painted, or engraved, or paralyzed, or dead, or asleep, or in a trance of meditation; he was motionless, yet wandering from his right course; alone, yet possessed by Love; all aglow, yet raising a pallid face; absent-minded, yet giving his love a place within him; silent, and yet telling a tale of Love's great woe; seated on a stone, yet standing in face of death. He was tormented by Kama, who yet, in fear of many a curse, remained unseen. By his great stillness he appeared to be deserted by the senses which had entered into him to behold the love that dwelt in his heart, and had fainted in fear at its unbearable heat, or had left him in wrath at the tossing of his mind. From eyes steadily closed, and dimmed within by the smoke of Love's keen fire, he ceaselessly poured forth a storm of tears trickling down through his eyelashes. (304) The filaments of the creepers near trembled in the sighs which rushed out, bearing the redness of his lips like the upstarting ruddy flame of Kama burning his heart. As his hand rested on his left cheek, his brow, from the clear rays of his nails rising upwards, seemed to have a fresh mark of sandal very pure; from the late removal of his earring, the parijata flower, his ear was endowed with a tamala shoot or a blue lotus by the bees that murmured a charm to bewitch love, under the guise of their soft hum as they crept up in longing for what remained of that fragrance. Under the guise of his hair rising in a passionate thrill he seemed to bear on his limbs a mass of broken points of the flowery darts of Love's arrows discharged into his pores. With his right hand he bore on his breast a string of pearls that, by being interlaced with the flashing rays of his nails, seemed bristling in joy at the pleasure of touching his palm, and that was, as it were, a banner of recklessness. He was pelted by the trees with pollen, like a powder to subdue Love; he was caressed by açoka shoots tossed by the wind, and transferring to him their rosy glow; he was besprinkled by woodland Lakshmi with honey-dew from clusters of fresh flowers, like waters to crown Love; he was struck by Love with campak buds, which, as their fragrance was drunk in by bees, were like fiery barbs all smoking; (305) he was rebuked by the south wind, as if by the hum of the bees maddened by the many scents of the wood; he was bewildered by the honey-month, as by cries of 'All hail!' to Spring raised by the cuckoos in their melodious ecstasy. Like the risen moon, he was robed in paleness; like the stream of Ganges in summer, he had dwindled to meagreness; like a sandal-tree with a fire at its heart, he was fading away. He seemed to have entered on another birth, and was as another man, strange and unfamiliar; he was changed into another shape. As one entered by an evil spirit, ruled by a great demon, possessed by a strong devil, drunk, deluded, blind, deaf, dumb, all merged in joy and love, he had reached the climax of the mind's slavery when possessed by Love, and his old self could no longer be known.