विक्रम चरित (उज्जैन सम्राट् विक्रमादित्य - पराक्रम, न्याय एवं ३२ पुतलियों की कथा सटीक)

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be encompassed. But come, hasten to grant my request.
Do you fully comprehend the nature of my speech?"
Soometra, touched with his appearance and friendly disposi-
tion, smiled at the conclusion of his address, and did not
hesitate to allow him a chaste embrace, after which the
youth disappeared. The father, after bathing and perform-
ing his ablutions, returned to where he had left his daughter,
and was surprised at not finding her there, but perceived
her at a distance coming towards him. She appeared to
him, though retaining the same line of features, to have
suddenly advanced to womanhood; but on coming nearer,
he found that she was in her former condition of infancy.
The father asked her why she had left her place, and to
his horror and indignation she told him all that had occur-
red, without concealing a single circumstance. He became
very much dejected when he thought of the disgrace that
would probably fall on him; though he doubted whether
any injury had been inflicted upon his child, as she was
still an infant. Then again he recalled the circumstance
which he beheld as his daughter advanced to him from the
distance: she then appeared to have all at once grown into
a woman, and on nearing him had as suddenly resumed her
natural shape of a child. He was greatly puzzled at all
this. "God alone knows," said he, "what this illusion
means: my eyes could not have deceived me, and yet how
can I account for the strange phenomenon?" As he was
unable to solve the mystery he led his daughter home.
Four months after the occurrence above narrated, the
brahmin's daughter, suddenly and against all precedent in
the order of nature, shot up into a young woman, and at
the same time showed every sign of being with child.
When the neighbours came to know of her situation, it
created a deal of scandal, which was productive of great
pain to her father, for much stress was laid on her supposed
infamy and gross violation of virtue.
The unpleasant intelligence soon reached the ears of
king Somekaunt,---that a brahmin's daughter had become