Just as when the crescent moon slowly waxes and attains its full form in the sky, its reflection in a shallow pond below waxes with it, in the same way did Chhaya, Divya’s shadow, grow into womanhood alongside Divya. The sky-faring moon goes on its journey at a calm, steady pace, but not so its reflection. The water below gets ruffled by the slightest draft. Chhaya, by serving young couples in the interior of the palace and living in close proximity with them, soon came to understand things that eluded Divya, especially about the growth of her body and its purpose.

One day, Vinay Sharma’s wife was enraged to find Chhaya in her son’s room at an odd hour of the day. She dismissed her from all household work and yoked her to the task of fetching water from the water tank. Fate proved to be kind, however. Youth bloomed unbridled in her person; her face acquired a new lustre and charm. With the help of Bahul, the chief-slave, Chhaya secured for herself the job of serving wine to the guests in the reception hall. Compared with the interior of the palace, which was infested with dwarfs, factotums, decrepit old guards and jealous maidservants, service in the reception hall was much more attractive. There was variety to it, and freedom too. And above all, Bahul, the chief-slave, looked kindly upon her.

Chhaya sometimes longed to go near the reception hall, but the thought of the Greek women guarding the door, sword in hand, would make her blood freeze. Separation from Bahul made her very restless and she wanted to break her body to pieces by dashing herself against the walls of the palace; to tear her body to shreds by plunging headlong into thorny bushes. For a long time she remained depressed and in the end resigned herself to her plight, regarding it as the will of fate.

Divya came to know that Prithusen was in the house, that he had come to present a petition to the grandsire. Etiquette did not permit her to find out more and her mind was in turmoil from curiosity and indecision. She knew that the grandsire was not unfavourably inclined towards Prithusen, but she was eager to speak to the latter herself. What exactly did she want to tell him? She did not know … maybe something in the way of sympathy, consolation.

Everywhere, whether in the palace of her great-grandfather, or at the houses of her acquaintances, at Devi Mallika’s or Vasumitra’s, at drinking or gambling parties, whenever any mention was made of Prithusen, Divya listened eagerly. Something kept gnawing at her heart all the time. Her mind troubled by uncertainty, Divya became listless and uncommunicative. She could find no satisfaction in anything. Her great-grandmother, Mahadevi, drawing near the end of her life’s journey, was, in the light of her beliefs, approaching the other world, and had, to all intent and purpose, turned her face towards it. She had been unable to make up her mind as to which was more preferable, salvation or Nirvana. Therefore, in a confused state she strove hard to win both, by trying to secure the blessings of the cleric-sacrificers, the priests, the sages and the Buddhist bhikshus. Concern for her large family had become a source of annoyance to her.