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CHAPTER TWO
hair and put on your garment which has fallen off." With these words he did it himself, though she was unwilling.
She said: "Elder brother, what is this? You are to be honored like Viśvabhuti. This is not right for you or for me, leading to disgrace of both families."
Kamatha smiled and said: Do not say this from simplicity. Do not make your own youth, deprived of pleasure, in vain. Enjoy pleasure of the senses with me, fair-eyed lady. Enough of this eunuch Marubhuti now, since the law (smrti) is: 'If the husband has disappeared, dies, become an ascetic, is impotent, or outcaste-in these five calamities, of women another husband is prescribed.' "324
So advised by him she, very desirous of pleasure in the beginning, seated on his lap first, abandoned shame together with propriety. Then Kamatha, wounded by love, dallied with her. In this way there were constantly secret opportunities, always concealed, for them.
66
Finding this out, Varuna, bereft of compassion, red-eyed, jealous, told Marubhuti everything. Marubhūti said to her: Lady, this ignoble conduct does not exist in the elder brother, like heat in the moon." Though restrained by him in. this way, she told that day after day. He reflected, Who can be certain from confidence in some one else? Being averse to sexual pleasure, in order to be a witness himself, he went to Kamatha and said, "I am going to the village now." After saying this, Marubhuti went away, but returned at night in the guise of an exhausted begger by changing his dress and speech.
66
He said to Kamatha, "Sir, give me, a traveler from afar, shelter in your house," and he gave it unhesitatingly. He stayed in the window shown him, pretending to go to sleep, wishing to see the evil conduct of the two blinded by love. Vasundhara and Kamatha, evil-minded, dallied for a long time, unafraid from the thought, "Marubhūti has gone to the
324 34. See III, n. 122.
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