Scene II
(The Brahmin and Sri Krishna at Sri Krishna’s palace.)KRISHNA: I am exceedingly glad to see you, my old friend. Please tell me about your present life.
BRAHMIN: I am very happy, and my wife is very nice. And you, Krishna, you are a Lord now — an inner king and an outer king. Even so, you are showing me the utmost kindness, sympathy and friendship.
KRISHNA: What have you brought from home? I am eager to eat something of yours.
BRAHMIN (aside): Krishna is the King here. He has hundreds of slaves, and his palace is most luxurious. All divine and earthly things are at his command. What can I do? I am too embarrassed to give him this small quantity of popped rice.
(Sri Krishna snatches away his popped rice and starts eating.)
KRISHNA: Delicious, most delicious! For a long time I have not been blessed with this kind of food. I left Brindavan, and now I am King. Here I get food, but it doesn’t have in it the real affection, the boundless affection, that is in this food you have brought from your wife. Now that I am in a city, I miss real affection, real concern.
BRAHMIN (aside): How I am enjoying Sri Krishna’s presence! Divine Joy, divine Peace, divine Light is pouring forth from him, and I am drinking in his divine Nectar. I am so happy. Oh, now I am really pleased. I have fulfilled my desire, and my wife’s desire I have also fulfilled in a way, since I have come to Sri Krishna. But I will not be able to ask my beloved Krishna for earthly wealth. I can’t. How can I ask him for earthly things, fleeting things, ephemeral things, when out of his infinite bounty he has given me divine things, eternal things?
