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Picture it. The sakhīs have just been at their games, and Śrīmatī is glad to the depths to see how much delight Her dear Nāgaramaṇi and the friends are taking. But the friends have a tenderer aim than play: they want Svāminī folded into the arms of Śyāmasundara. So on the soft pretext of going to gather flowers they drift away, laughing over their shoulders, dropping hints to Kṛṣṇa that His hands are free now, that the moment is His. And in that opened space Rādhā and Mādhava come together. They embrace; They begin to ramble out into the forest of Vṛndāvana, and only the trusted maidservant follows behind, light-footed, asking for nothing.

See how He walks, O heart. His arm is laid across Her shoulder, and the arm itself betrays Him: it is "utpulaka", risen all over in goosebumps, every hair standing in ecstasy. This is the One who upholds the worlds, and a single nearness to Rādhā sets His skin trembling. And His gait, "mada-kala karīndra-adbhuta-gatiḥ", is the gait of an intoxicated king of elephants, swaying, unhurried, magnificent and helpless at once. Why is it so wonderful, this elephant-walk? Because His left arm does not merely rest on Her shoulder; it reaches across until it touches Svāminī's left breast, while She stretches Her right arm round to Kṛṣṇa's right hip, and so the two of Them move bound into one swaying shape. They are singing as They go: Their own self-made poems and songs, each glorifying the other's form and qualities and play, He praising Her, She praising Him. And here is the loveliest detail of all: Svāminī keeps the rhythm of the songs by tapping on Kṛṣṇa's right hip, and Śyāma keeps the rhythm by tapping on Rādhikā's left breast, the music passing back and forth between Their two bodies as if between two hands of one player. The tradition tells us that in this forest-enjoyment Rādhā and Mādhava become non-different from each other, the two flowers of Their hearts strung upon a single thread; and that when Śrīmatī taps out the dance-beat upon Kṛṣṇa's shoulder, She is in that very stroke driving off Her enemies, the dreads of separation-from-Kṛṣṇa, for there is no separation here, only the one thread.

Then the Couple turns aside into a solitary kuñja, and notice who keeps its gate. The humming bees keep it. O bees, you are not only music here, you are wardens; you let pass only the supremely qualified maidservants and turn every other eye away, for what unfolds within is not meant to be seen by any who would merely look. And within, aho, He reveals "nijāṁ aty-adbhuta surata-śikṣām": His own, very wonderful, self-devised teachings of love, arts that are His and no one else's, unfolding from His own heart for Her alone. The blessed maidservant, admitted past the bee-guarded threshold, simply watches in bliss as Hari teaches her Svāminī wonder upon wonder.

And why "Hari"? The old teachers fix His name to this very scene. He is Hari, the One who takes away, "haraṇa", because with His matchless beauty and sweetness He gently lifts from Rādhikā Her opposition, Her shyness, Her every hesitation, carrying them off until nothing is left between Them but love. He steals not jewels but reluctance; He robs Her only of Her holding-back.

And do not think the wonder of the verse lies in any union. Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it in the Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi, that for clever, tasteful lovers the playful flirtation, the līlā-vilāsa, is sweeter by far than union itself: "vidagdhānāṁ mitho līlā vilāsena yathā sukham, na tathā samprayogena": the rasikas, those who truly taste, know this. The arm across the shoulder, the elephant-sway, the songs traded beat for beat, the slipping into the bee-loud grove: this nearness is the treasure, this closeness that two hearts find when love has already made them one.