a shrinking at her heart, hastens to seek Arjuna in the forest temple of Shiva. There he reminds her of his vow; hence it is that in despair of winning his love, she turns to the God of Love. Madana promises to bring the world-conquering Arjuna to her feet; and she craves from Vasanta, god of youth, one day of perfect womanly grace in which she shall lose her plain looks and boyish features.
"For a single day," she says, "make me superbly beautiful.… Give me one brief day of perfect beauty."
There is the transcendent note that is never far away in this imaginer's music. Compare the unfolding of the love idyll that follows with the stern drama of love's scourging, told in The King of the Dark Chamber. In both the supernal powers come into play across the desires of men and women who think to win love, and find it bound by immutable law. In both a motive of fate, in the quest of supernal beauty and loveliness, is used to evoke the central idea of the drama. But in one the woman craves beauty for herself; in the other her desire is to find it in the forbidding face and the dark chamber of her dreadful lord and king.
