Note 3 — Chapter CXVII

When Padmávatí’s friend said this to her, she seized her hand, and said to her with a face cast down from shame, and a voice choked with tears, “My friend, you knew it all long ago; why should I try to conceal it?3 The fact is, that prince, though on that occasion, in the sacred enclosure of Gaurí, he delivered me from the terrible fire of the Rákshasí’s wrath, plunged me nevertheless in the fire of love, with its intolerable flame of separation. So I do not know, where to go, whom to speak to, what to do, or what expedient I must have recourse to, since my heart is fixed on one hard to obtain.”