Her great-grandfather kept stroking Divya’s hair, but in her vexed state of mind, this show of affection appeared futile and even irksome to her.

Almost every evening, Divya was present at the gatherings in the garden of the palace, which were attended by her great-grandfather, her uncles and the ladies of the house. The elderly guests would compliment her for her exquisite mastery over art. The young men and women of the nobility would also praise her lavishly. This gave her fresh courage and a sense of satisfaction.

Rudradhir never showered her with praises. Divya was quite satisfied that it should be so. To receive compliments from him or to acknowledge them made her feel uncomfortable. The same could be said about Marish too.

One day Marish said something rather strange: ‘Your art is only the blossoming forth of your power of attraction, which is the primeval force of creation in woman.’ These words from the cynic Marish, who had been censured for encouraging immorality and wickedness, the tone of his voice and the expression in his eyes, had sent a shiver through her body.

Divya would often remember what Marish had said. Those words were charged with meaning. She would try to unravel their significance, the suggestion that lay hidden in them. There was sweetness in the words, as also a sense of pride, hope and enthusiasm, but whenever that crazy young man, who had been censured and denounced, was nearby, she felt unsure and apprehensive. She would say to herself: ‘The best swordsman, Prithusen, had not expressed any opinion about my art … That he should have drawn his sword to lend a shoulder to my palanquin … that itself was an expression of opinion.’

Even before Divya’s birth, her mother’s health had been frail. The day Divya was born, she was given a wet nurse, who had an infant of her own clinging to her milk-heavy breasts. The people in the palace, forgetting the nurse’s real name, began calling her ‘Dhata’, meaning the nurse of the newborn baby. The nurse too, proudly accepted the name and thought of herself as taking the place of the child’s mother. Divya’s mother, on the other hand, looking upon the wet nurse’s child as the ‘shadow’ of her own daughter, gave her the name of ‘Chhaya’, and this name struck.

As she was the only girl born in the family after three generations, Divya was everyone’s favourite. She was from the bloodline of the eldest son and the eldest grandson and the first great-granddaughter of the Chief Justice, and was, therefore, the recipient of special love and affection from the members of the family. She lived with her grandmother and her nurse in the same part of the palace as the Chief Justice, but the living quarters of the other elders too were always open to her. Like a butterfly she flitted about in the garden, followed by Chhaya and the nurse. Up to the age of ten, Chhaya was merely Divya’s playmate. Thereafter, she began to be assigned simple tasks, now in one part of the palace, then in another.