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Picture the close of the spring night. The Mādhavī-pavilion has kept its secret, and now Rādhā and Mādhava rise from it, refreshed, and step out together into the vernal grove. A fortunate maidservant has already fanned Them, has brought the cool scented water and the fresh betel leaves, the small services that are her whole heaven; and now she follows close behind, a shadow at Their heels, asking nothing but to remain near.

O the grove tonight. The branches bend under their burden of blossom, fresh sprouts trembling on every bough, and the bees stagger drunk from cup to cup, drinking the madhu and droning their low song. A young cuckoo somewhere lifts the fifth note into the dark. And the wind, that humble servant who never tires, gathers the breath of sandal and carries it past the Couple like an ārati lamp swung in the night, waving fragrance instead of flame. It is the full-moon night of spring, the enchanting king of seasons, and the clever lover has met the clever beloved, and the moon pours its whole silver over Them. So Balarāma Dāsa sang it, and bowed before his own vision.

See how They go. His body is a single emerald given limbs; Hers is gold poured and poured again, a mirror melted ten times over until it holds nothing but light. They keep Their arms upon each other's shoulders and wander, gazing, and as They gaze each pours into the other until the colors run: the gold takes on the blue, the blue takes on the gold, Rāi becomes Śyāma and Śyāma becomes Gaurī, and at the meeting of Their eyes a small laughter rises and breaks like the first laughter of the world. Every creature of the grove shivers to see it. The very deer forget to graze. And the devotee who remembers this, kept inside the scene, feels the smiles upon his own heart, sees the golden and the bluish luster, hears the jingling of Their ornaments until the goosebumps rise on his skin, and the old longing breaks from him: alas, when will I see this youthful Couple face to face and serve Them directly?

Now They come to the bank of the Yamunā and sit upon a jewelled platform washed in moonlight, and the maidservant follows like Their shadow and fans Them; and there, enchanted past speaking by Her sweetness, Madhupati turns to look at Her as if for the first time, and the wonder rises in Him, and He speaks. Hear Him. "O Priye," He says, "You look like another form of Vṛndāvana to Me. I have wandered My forest, and I find it all again in You."

"Look," He says, "this fine dark line of down that runs along Your body, lifting now in the joy of My nearness: it is the very Yamunā, daughter of Mihira the sun, mihirātmajā, its blackish waters glinting under the moon, its waves winding through the grove of You. And these lips of Yours, red as the bandhūka that grows wild over all My Vṛndāvana, the flower that is friend and kin to its own glowing color. And the whole soft luster of Your limbs is the open gold of the champaka, the flowering tree that makes the forest a lamp. Aho! And this navel of Yours, this still and lovely hollow, nābhi-saraḥ śobhanā: it is one of the many sweet lakes of My woodland, a pool a thirsting traveler would kneel beside and never leave."

"O Priye, there is no shortage of comparisons between You and Vṛndāṭavī, for there is no end to what You hold of it. Your arms are its fresh creeper-vines, the latā that climb new in spring, supple, reaching. Your breasts are its great hanging bouquets, the clustered blossom heavy at the vine's crown. And these ornaments that sing as You move, the bracelets and anklets and the small bells: they are the bees of My forest, the murmuring jhaṅkṛti that is the grove's own voice. When I wander through Vṛndāvana I understand at last: You have given this forest all of Your own personal beauty. You have poured Yourself into every leaf and lake and flowering branch, and that is why the forest moves Me. It is You I was loving all along. And so, with Your sweet beauty You steal My heart, just as Vṛndāṭavī does; only You steal it more, for the forest is but Your shadow, and You are the thing itself."

And the maidservant, kneeling near, hears all of this. The rasa of His comparisons floods her own small heart until she can hardly breathe for the sweetness of it, that Prāṇeśvarī should be praised so, that the Beloved of all should sit at Her side and name Her the whole of the holy grove. For no gopī can carry away Kṛṣṇa's mind the way Śrī Rādhikā carries it. So Karṇapūra fixes it in the Ānanda Vṛndāvana Campū, that She is a garland of crown-jewels upon the heads of all the cowherd maidens; that as Vaidarbhī poetry is endowed with every grace, with mādhurya and ojaḥ and prasāda, sweetness and power and clarity, so is She adorned with all jewel-like qualities; a golden ketakī in a garden of love, a bud of lightning in a cloud of sweetness, a golden stripe on the whetstone of beauty, the moonlight that opens the night-lotus of joy, the essential wealth of an ocean of loveliness, the proud smile-grace of spring, the mine of all the arts. She is She, and there is no second.

So the maidservant gathers soft flowers and builds a fragrant bed where the two Beloveds may at last sink into rest. She fans Them; another presses Their feet; and slowly Rādhā and Mādhava fall asleep upon the flowers. And then the blessed servants too lie down at Their feet and let sleep take them, still tasting, even in dreaming, the unbearable honey of that nearness. O heart, would you be anywhere else than at those feet?