from the people's eyes9 I II make such love to you Prabodh gave no thought to the ankle bells—he was already cooing with passion He pushed his beak into Maitnya s open beak for a full moment, touching the depth of her throat Then he let go of her "What s the use of a love," he said, "in which we can't even die9 Sometimes it seems to me as if it's death and not life which is endless " Then he burst out "It's all so crazy '" Maitnya knew well that Prabodh would never bring her the ankle bells not unless he had some selfish motive of his own Then Prabodh began to talk of all those long-vanished centuries Those gala affairs that Demetnos held with Aphrodite on the beaches of Alexandria The time when Oedipus, who had in ignorance marrned his own mother, discovered the truth and died The story of the gallant Kunal whose beloved married his father and who then had to give away his eyes He talked of the king Bhartnhan who gave his queen the apple of eternal youth But the queen gave it to her secret lover a washerman, who in turn made a present of it to his favorite prostitute And she in her turn brought it to her king, to make the benefit of the apple reach the entire country Prabodh and Maitnya had seen everything from the beginning of time—now they wished to see the end of it Seeing such anarchy in the relations between man and woman Maitnya said, "There have to be some rules " But she was herself at that moment thinking of Man-Sat—who lived in an old banyan tree on the plains of the Punjab and was a very handsome young pigeon with a lovely blue neck—because he was mortal As she thought of him her body became fragrant and her inside felt tender She mentioned Man-Sat's name—as if just in passing But that was enough to make Prabodh ruffle his wings and stretch his claws It scared Maitnya to see Prabodh tremble with anger but secretly it also pleased her a great deal With lowered eyes she said "It's we who make laws for the sake of life—can t we break them ourselves9" Prabodh—who only a moment ago had said "Nature s law is to propagate the species no matter how or through whom"—quickly and firmly said "No" One day after a long flight, Prabodh and Maitnya returned to their nest Man-Sat had followed them to the cave of Amarnath but then had gone back, disappointed That had pleased Maitnya and also saddened her She was glad that her Prabodh could still protect her from the terror that suddenly swoops down from the sky above, and that she herself was still so young and so beautiful that Man-Sat of the distant plains would follow her for hundreds of miles and then go back disappointed And she was sad that Prabodh could at any time stop her from making an independent flight of her own When they crawled into the nest, Prabodh and Maitnya felt a wonderful warm feeling come over them Prabodh lifted his pleasure-filled eyes to look at Maitnya, and spread his right wing over her Then he said "My queen, how much we have seen—how many Annual of Urdu Studies, #5 99