As I knew that for me sleep was not to be thought of, I did not undress at all that evening, but sat down at the head of my bed on the grass mat intended for devotional exercises, and spent the night there in pious and fitting fashion, filled with fervent love thoughts, and absorbed in prayer to the lotus-bearing Lakshmi, her celestial prototype; but the early morning sun found me again at work with brush and colour.
Several hours had flown away as if on wings while I was thus occupied, when Somadatta entered the room. I had but just time, when I heard him coming, to thrust the panel and painting materials under the bed. I did it quite involuntarily.
Somadatta took a low chair, sat down beside me, and looked at me with a smile on his face.
"I perceive of a truth," he said, "that our house is to have the honour of being the spiritual birthplace of a holy man. Thou fastest as do only the most strenuous ascetics, and dost refrain from the luxurious bed. For neither on thy pillows nor on thy mattress is there to be seen the faintest impress of thy body and the white sheet is without a crease. Nevertheless, although as the result of thy fasting thou art already grown quite slim, thy body is not yet entirely devoid of weight, as the curious may see from this grass matting on which thou hast obviously spent the night in
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