66697602-The-Ramayana-R-K-Narayan

Rama felt that any further conversation with her would
prove useless. Obstinate and unmoving, she built her edifice
of falsehoods higher and higher; so he turned and, holding
Sita close to him, walked back calmly and gracefully into his
ashram.
When the door was shut in her face, Soorpanaka felt so
distraught that she almost swooned. Recovering, she
reflected, “He has spurned me in no uncertain terms and
turned his back on me; he is completely infatuated with that
woman.” Finding that there was nothing more for her to do
there, she withdrew to her own lair beyond the woods and
went to bed. She was shrivelling in the heat of passion. As it
had once been for Sita, the same love-sickness proved a
great torment to this monstrous woman too. Everything
irritated her and aggravated her agony. When the moonlight
flooded the earth, she roared at the moon and wished she
could set the serpent Rahu to swallow it; when the cool
breeze touched her, she howled imprecations at it, and rose
as if determined to destroy the god of love himself, whose
shafts were piercing her heart. Unable to stand the pain
inflicted by her present surroundings, she entered a
mountain cave infested with deadly serpents and shut herself
in it. There she was the victim of hallucinations. Rama in his
full form seemed to stand before her again and again, and
she fancied she embraced him and fondled his broad
shoulders and chest. When the illusion passed, she cried,
“Why do you torment me in this way? Why do you refuse to