The treatment administered by old Cheebuk proved highly effective. With his medicines and the life-giving virtues of rare fruits from Kandahar, Prithusen’s health soon recuperated. This in turn led to an increased eagerness for Divya. He had gambled his life in order to achieve success. Now, in the absence of Divya, that very success appeared meaningless.

Prestha, the magnate, was overjoyed at his son’s recovery. But when he learned that Prithusen had become sad and listless, he made arrangements to provide dance, music and other entertainment to divert him. But these distractions only jarred on Prithusen’s senses. Impetuously, he would dismiss the performers from his room with a wave of his hand and lie by himself in silence. Sometimes, the magnate himself would sit at his son’s bedside and make small talk to divert his son’s mind. But Prithusen took no interest in such talk either. He kept thinking of how best he could broach with his father the subject that was uppermost in his mind, but he could not summon up the necessary courage.

With his hand resting on the shoulder of a newly bought slave-girl, dark and beautiful, who held a veena in her hand, the magnate entered his son’s room. He sat down by the bed and said, ‘My son, your health has been making satisfactory progress, thanks to Cheebuk’s remarkable medicines. But why do you look so despondent? There is nothing more injurious to one’s health than depression. Cheer up, son, and try to take an interest in things. You have a fine ear for music. This slave-girl, Ulka, comes from Dakshinapath,¹ and is an excellent veena player. She will play for you, and I am sure you’ll find her music very soothing to your troubled mind.’

The magnate signalled the girl to begin playing. At the first touch of the strings Prithusen was filled with a sense of weariness. He raised his hand for the girl to stop, and then, turning towards his father, said, ‘Father, I wish to go in a palanquin to pay a call at the palace of the Chief Justice. Do I have your permission to do so?’

‘In this state of health, when you are so weak and feeble? Why, what is prompting you to go there?’ asked the magnate in surprise, passing his fingers through his grizzled beard, now yellowing with age.

‘Before I left for the battlefield, I had asked for the hand of the Chief Justice’s great-granddaughter. I want to seek his approval now without delay,’ Prithusen replied, with his eyes cast down.

The old magnate continued to play with his beard. With a distant smile, he said, ‘Son, the gods have been pleased with you and have blessed you with knowledge, talent, aptitude, wealth and victory in battle. In due time, the gods will be generous in granting you the joys of matrimony. Besides Divya, there will be many a beautiful and cultured damsel whom you will find pleasing. A patient man who feels the pulse of time and acts accordingly is blessed by the gods with joys in this world as well as in the next. Wait for the opportune time, my son.’