If I find her I
will bring her home, otherwise I shall not return. I cannot remain
with Kunda Nandini; she has become a pain to my eyes. It is not her
fault, it is mine, but I cannot endure to see her face. Formerly I
said nothing to her, but now I am perpetually finding fault with her.
She weeps--what can I do? I shall soon be with you."
As Nagendra wrote so he acted. Placing the care of everything in the
hands of the _Dewan_ during his temporary absence, he set forth on his
wanderings. Kamal Mani had previously gone to Calcutta; therefore of
the people mentioned in this narrative, Kunda Nandini alone was left
in the Datta mansion, and the servant Hira remained in attendance upon
her.
Darkness fell on the large household. As a brilliantly-lighted,
densely-crowded dancing-hall, resounding with song and music, becomes
dark, silent, and empty when the performance is over, so that immense
household became when abandoned by Surja Mukhi and Nagendra Natha.
As a child, having played for a day with a gaily painted doll, breaks
and throws it away, and by degrees, earth accumulating, grass springs
over it, so Kunda Nandini, abandoned by Nagendra Natha, remained
untended and alone amid the crowd of people in that vast house.
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