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Begin in the heat of the afternoon, in the house at Yāvaṭa, where Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī sits with Her work undone and Her eyes turned away from it. The fire that burns Her is viraha, the ache of separation from Śyāmasundara, and it does not stay small. It rises until it cannot be borne another moment. So She rises too. She tells the house She is only going out to gather flowers and to fetch water for Her pūjā, and with that gentle pretext on Her lips She slips away alone, every cell of Her hoping to meet Him somewhere along the path.

And Her kiṅkarī, Her own handmaiden-self, follows close as Her shadow, asking nothing, wanting only to be near. O Svāminī, where Your feet go, there the servant's whole life goes. Watch now how the līlā-śakti, the mystical potency of the pastime, takes the anxious Rādhā and draws Her, almost without Her own choosing, straight toward the forest where Kṛṣṇa waits. And watch what the wind of Vṛndāvana does. O wind, what service is this. You lift the fragrance of His body and carry it from far off into Her nostrils, and at once She is a thirsty bumblebee-girl following the honey home. When She catches sight of Śyāma in the distance She does not run to Him. She bends to the blossoms and pretends to pick, decorating Herself with the bhāva-bhūṣaṇa, the ornaments of ecstasy that no jeweller can string, lalita and vilāsa, the sweet shyness, the trembling pretended fear.

Kṛṣṇa cannot keep away from a mood so sweet. He comes near and teases: "Who are You? Why do You ruin the beauty of My garden, breaking all these tender sprouts?" And when She murmurs that She is only picking flowers for Her worship, He spins the game wider: He is the gardener here, appointed by King Cupid himself; flowers are stolen from this garden every day; today He has caught the thief and will not let Her go. She answers with feigned indignation that She is a chaste housewife, that the sun is already sinking, that work waits at home, and besides, the garden belongs to Her friend Vṛndā, which is why it is called Vṛndāvana, so what right has He to stop the picking of flowers in their own Vṛndāvana? He warns Her, still laughing, that Cupid's temper is fierce and can throw young girls into waves of terror, and that if She would be safe she had best step into His bowerhouse, the one guarded by intoxicated, heroic bumblebees. At these words of Her Beloved the amorous longing breaks over Her like a wave; Her veil slips, Her braid loosens, and Her stammering, half-spoken words pour the greatest pleasure into Him. Then the maidservant, working in the background, arranges the meeting of Rādhā and Mādhava in a bower close by, and when it is done Śrīmatī hurries home, trembling already at the punishment Her cruel superiors might mete out.

Now comes the verse itself, and the servant's true labor. At the husband's house the sharp-eyed sister-in-law, Kuṭilā, sees the marks of love written across Śrīmatī's body and begins to scold. And the maidservant, to whom Svāminī is dearer than millions of lives, cannot stand and watch Her shamed. She steps forward with her clever, covering words: "O Kuṭile, why do you uselessly chastise this innocent, chaste, tender-natured girl? She went out to pick flowers and fetch water for Her pūjā. The thorns along the way bruised Her breasts. Her own streaming sweat washed the tilaka from Her brow. The chilly wind on the bank of the Yamunā dried and cracked Her sprout-soft lips. These are no signs of a meeting with any paramour." So every telltale mark is given a blameless cause: the sweat from gathering blossoms far off, the breast-scratches from thorns, the smudged tilaka from sweat alone, the wounded lips from the cold. This is the gopana, the concealment, that the verse calls preṣṭha-saṅgam, the union with the dearmost, hidden from the krūra, the cruel.

And the wonder of it, O Rādhe, is that this is counted not as deceit but as the very flower of service. To stand between Your love and those who would soil it, and to do it with such quickness of wit, is the joy and whole purpose of the handmaiden's days. Sometimes, the tradition tells, You do not even leave the work to her; You take it up Yourself. Hear it in the old song, when Jaṭilā presses You: why does a world-enchanting housewife go every morning to the Yamunā, and why return only at nightfall? And You answer like a child of perfect innocence: in the morning You saw a lotus fit to bring Your mother-in-law, so You went to pick it; but in the daytime the lotuses swarm with bumblebees, and they bit You, and so the marks of His mouth become bee-stings; the thorns about the lotus scratched You and stole Your bangles, and looking for them You waded into the water, and so the whole day slipped away. "Just see," You say, "My whole body is bruised, and all for this one lotus flower." And the lotus is Kṛṣṇa, and the listener never knows it.