Ratnaprabha would come every day in the morning or in the evening to watch the progress of the form that was gradually emerging. When she asked him what it was, his reply was evasive, ‘Something that has been on my mind, just a whim.’

Although she hid it behind a smile while talking to Marish, a regret often gnawed at her mind. It had taken her a lifetime of effort to build the shrine of her reputation as a court dancer, but the altar for a god before whom she could make her offerings in that shrine had up till now remained vacant. That bare altar made all her affluence and her success seem pointless. Could Marish not fill that place and give meaning and fullness to her life?

‘But what have I to offer him?’ Ratnaprabha would ask herself. ‘My barren old age? To that self-willed youth, I can only offer my affection. And Anshumala? Like a tortoise, she shrinks within herself, and hides under the shell of her indifference and defeats all his advances. But Marish, like a canny hunter, has now discovered her main weakness and has succeeded in unsettling her inner calm. To save herself, she has retreated further and plunged into the depths where nobody can reach her.’

‘Silly girl,’ Ratnaprabha would sometimes find herself addressing Anshu in her mind, ‘how long will you hide away, ignoring life and suppressing your instincts? The path of life lies open before you and all your urges are pressing you in that direction. How long will you go on fighting yourself? Heaven knows what the future has in store for you.’ Anshu was in fact fighting against herself in her resolve not to surrender to any persuasion from others. In the hushed silence of the midday, sitting alone in her room, she heard the clink of the chisel and the thud of the hammer on the rock, and felt as though the blows were being aimed at her heart. But even so, it was pleasant to hear them, and she wanted them to continue. Those blows did not rouse any anger or feeling of revenge in her. She was angry only with herself. ‘Why have I begun to feel so restless?’ she would ask herself.

On a day of overcast sky and cool breezes, Marish sat listless, ignoring the unfinished work and his tools. ‘Why are you not doing any sculpting today, Arya?’ Ratnaprabha asked him curiously.

‘Devi, my idea has taken its final form,’ he replied. Ratnaprabha was surprised at the answer. It was only yesterday that she had missed visiting him at his work. By what miracle, she thought, could the sculpture have been completed?

‘Won’t you show us the masterpiece that you have created?’

Marish nodded his consent, and Ratnaprabha asked Dagdha, the maidservant, to bring Anshumala and Muktavali to see the sculpture.

The three stood by the ornamental pond looking intently at the sculpture. The upper and lower parts of the rock had been left rough and untouched. Only in the centre, in the right half of the surface, a small area had been cut away, like a window. Framed in that window could be seen the full-grown breast of a young woman, with a depression below suggesting a waistline, and from the navel swelling downwards, a gracefully domed curve.