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Begin in the kuñja, with the festival barely begun. The Couple has only this moment come together; the great festival of love (saṅgaty api mahotsavena) is opening its first petal. There is laughter still warm in the air, the sweetness of two who have waited and at last are near. And then, O Rādhe, Your eyes fall upon the Kaustubha jewel that rides on Śyāma's chest, that gem that gathers all light into itself, and in its glittering heart a sweet form is shining (madhurākāra). It is Yours. It is Your own face, Your own loveliness, thrown back from the polished stone. But You do not know it. You see only a girl, close against Him, here, now, in the very bower where You and He have met.

How fast joy turns. In a single breath the festival darkens. Grief rises (śoka) and anger rises with it (krodha), braided so tight no one could pull them apart. Kṛṣṇa, who knows all things, is for this one instant Himself undone: He had been gazing into the shining mirror of Your breasts and there mistook His own reflection for some other boys, so that even the all-knowing one stands briefly fooled inside the play. He lays His hand upon You, disappointed that You should turn from Him at the very threshold of love, and asks why You are angry. But You will not be touched. You push His hand away (utkṣipya priya-pāṇim). "O knower of morality," You say, and the word is all sarcasm, "do not try to flatter Me. Go find Your own enjoyment." The Rādhāvallabha singers hear the very charge You fling, "avinaya": impropriety, a breach of all decorum, and they name this whole tender storm sambhrama-māna, the loving sulk born of bewilderment, set to the rolling Śārdūlavikrīḍita meter. And out You go, out of the kuñja (gatāyā bahiḥ), straight to Your friends.

Then the second scene opens, the one the maidservant aches to witness. The sakhīs are surprised to see You come out so soon, with the festival of love hardly started, and they ask why You are angry. With tear-filled eyes You tell them (sāśru-nivedanāni): "Friends, this king of debauchees is embracing another girl right in front of Me. Who can bear it?" And the sakhīs answer, gentle and sure: "Rādhe, we have stood by the door of this kuñja the whole time. No other girl entered. Surely some wave of illusion struck You while You were swimming in the ocean of love." "But I saw her Myself," You insist, "how then could it be illusion?" So the sakhīs turn to the maidservants, who alone hold the secret, and they tell it: Svāminī mistook Her own reflection in the Kaustubha gem for another girl. And oh, when the sakhīs hear this, what delight they have. They take You by the hand and lead You back to Śyāmasundara, and they raise wave upon wave of laughter over the divine Couple, and the fishlike hearts of the maidservants swim blissfully on those very waves.

This is why the friends are everything here. A festival cannot be made by one or two; many are needed, and the sakhīs are the ones who complete it. The tradition fixes this in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta: "sakhī vinu ei līlā puṣṭa nāhi hoy; sakhī līlā vistāriyā sakhī āsvādoy": without the sakhīs the pastimes of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are not full; it is they who expand the play and make it relishable. Their laughing and teasing makes the Couple eager for loving pastimes once more, and seeing that kindling, the sakhīs withdraw with perfect discretion. Meanwhile Kṛṣṇa's own confusion has already cleared: the moment You smile at Him He understands He had mistaken His reflection for other boys, and He returns to His sweet labor of dressing and ornamenting You. The whole bewildered quarrel was never a flaw; it was the high art of a love so total that even Your own beauty, glimpsed for an instant, could not be borne as a rival. And the maidservant, watching it all, sees not a spat but a great festival of rasa, and prays only to hear You tell it: kim ahaṁ śroṣyāmi te rādhike, when, O Rādhike, will I be given to hear it from Your own lips.