The ocean of story, being C.H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's ...

36 THE OCEAN OF STORY
[M] " So if I were over-eager to appropriate you whom I
have long loved, and if Madanamanchuka, whom I consoled
with the hope of a joyful reunion with you, were to hear
of it, and lose all hope through me, her heart, which is as
soft as a flower, would break. 1
It is this desire to spare her
feelings which prevents me from being so eager now for
your society, before I have consoled her, though you are my
beloved, dearer to me than life."
When Prabhavati said this to Naravahanadatta, he was
full of joy and astonishment, and he
"
said to himself : Well,
Fate seems to take a pleasure in perpetually creating new
marvels, since it has produced Prabhavati, whose conduct is
"
so inconceivably noble ! With these thoughts in his mind,
"
the prince lovingly praised her, and said : Then take me
where that Madanamanchuka is." When Prabhavati heard
that, she took him up, and in a moment carried him through
the air to the mountain Ashadhapura. There she bestowed
him on Madanamanchuka, whose body had long been drying
up with grief, as a shower bestows fullness on a river.
Then Naravahanadatta beheld that fair one there, afflicted
with separation, thin and pale, like a digit of the new moon.
That reunion of those two seemed to restore them to life,
and gave joy to the world like the union of the night and the
moon. And the pair embraced, scorched with the fire of
separation, and as they were streaming with fatigue they
seemed to melt into one. Then they both partook at their
ease of luxuries suddenly provided in the night by the might
of Prabhavati's sciences. And, thanks to her science, no one
there but Madanamanchuka saw Naravahanadatta.
The next morning Naravahanadatta proceeded to loose
Madanamanchuka' s one lock, 2 but she, overpowered with
resentment against her enemy, said to her beloved :
" Long
That lock of mine must be loosened
ago I made this vow :
'
by my husband when Manasavega is slain, but not till then ;
1 I delete the stop at the end of si 100. All the India Office MSS.
read kritasvasa, and so does the Sanskrit College MS., but kritasa sd makes
sense.
2 A single braid of hair worn by a woman as a mark of mourning for an
absent husband. Monier Williams, sub voce " ekaveni"