Run! Run! But the ground was not level, being deeply scarred with
watercourses, and not easy to cross at any time, much less in a storm. I
managed to get entangled in a thorny shrub, and was nearly thrown on my
face by the force of the wind as I stopped to free myself.
When we had almost reached the house, a host of servants came hurrying
towards us, shouting and gesticulating, and fell upon us like another
storm. Some took us by the arms, some bewailed our plight, some were eager
to show the way, others hung on our backs as if fearing that the storm
might carry us off altogether. We evaded their attentions with some
difficulty and managed at length to get into the house, panting, with wet
clothes, dusty bodies, and tumbled hair.
One thing I had learnt; and will never again write in novel or story the
lie that the hero with the picture of his lady-love in his mind can pass
unruffled through wind and rain. No one could keep any face in mind,
however lovely, in such a storm,--he has enough to do to keep the sand out
of his eyes!...
The Vaishnava-poets have sung ravishingly of Radha going to her tryst with
Krishna through a stormy night. Did they ever pause to consider, I wonder,
in what condition she must have reached him? The kind of tangle her hair
got into is easily imaginable, and also the state of the rest of her
toilet. When she arrived in her bower with the dust on her body soaked by
the rain into a coating of mud, she must have been a sight!
But when we read the Vaishnava poems, these thoughts do not occur.
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