midnight
And so as I stood , with my soul in my ears , turned as it were behind me , suddenly there came round the tree upon the water a great boat of the colour of a lotus leaf , turned up at each end like the neck of a swan . And it came straight towards me , and as it reached me , its boatman stood up , looking at me with a smile . And I started , and all at once I laughed aloud , for amazement and delight : and even so , I hardly knew her to be herself . For she had cast away all her deity , and turned herself into a _ chetí _ , resembling a fragrant essence of midnight without a moon , clothed with absolute simplicity in soft dead black , with her own dark hair for her only decoration , tied in a knot around her head like a cloud of misty intoxication , and floating about her shoulders in confusion . And she looked at me with questioning eyes that shone bright in the moon 's rays , and said naively , with a smile that almost broke my heart in two : Now I am within a little of being equal to Chaturiká ? Is the maid a substitute for the queen that has disappeared ? And as I gazed at her in rapture without giving any answer , she said again : See !